On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 08:10:50PM -0500, Michael Lockhart wrote:
> 2. Command and Control. What projects or capabilities are
> available for performing remote command and control over services,
> packages, and system health? Currently, all push/pull is done
> with perl/sh scripts to bring files over, sanity check, install,
> update, etc. I've been leaning towards creating a daemon that
> runs on each system and has a secure connection back to a
> centralized location for determining if updates are available. My
> proof of concept works, but thoughts on how to do this right are
> GREATLY appreciated.
I've used cfengine on large (500+ nodes) Linux clusters. There lots
of things I wish were better in cfengine, but I haven't found a more
capable tool. For one-time mass administration tasks, I use dsh from
sysutils/clusterit, though the scenario you describe above seems
cfenginy to me.
> 3. Remote upgrading. Going from 3.2 -> 3.8 or 4.0 is going to be
> very difficult, and the approach that I am taking right now is
> creating a bsd.rd based kernel/image that will boot fully into
> memory, and contain the appropriate scripts to re-initialized the
> disks, rsync/scp/ftp/get/whatever the new base image and kernel
> over, then reboot, and go into the new image, and perform the rest
> of the upgrade from there. Has anyone done something similar to
> this or know of any projects along these lines?
Upgrading from 3.2 to 4.0 is going to be a headache. The clusters
I've worked in have all used network filesystems (mostly AFS) for
most data storage; reimaging a node has never cost much. Combined
with a well-thought-out configuration management system, and major
upgrades seem like less of a problem.
Of course, you need to vet your new system image with your
applications first.
I sure wish I had 600 OpenBSD boxes to worry about...Scientific
Linux is a headache.
--
o--------------------------{ Will Maier }--------------------------o
| web:.......http://www.lfod.us/ | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
*------------------[ BSD Unix: Live Free or Die ]------------------*
