Hi It sounds great. It would certainly be an improvement on the current config management without trying to represent the complexity of a fully fledged config management tool in the gui.
Ultimately though it might still be nice to "choose" a config management system in the gui or at least be able to easily change it. How you would do this I am not sure and need to give it a bit more thought and play arond a bit more with config management. Or as you argued adding it to the gui does not add any real value. Regards > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael DeHaan > Sent: 06 October 2008 16:03 > To: '[email protected]' > Subject: [Spacewalk-list] Spacewalk/Cobbler templating > features pending in Cobbler 1.3 == config management > > Hi folks, > > I know Cobbler/Spacewalk integration is ongoing so I wanted > to bring up a new Cobbler feature that may help with > configuration management as well as provisioning. This is a > new feature that has just been suggested a few weeks ago but > I think it's interesting -- primarily because it's incredibly > simple to do. > > Basically James Cammarata's pending patches to cobbler > (posted to the cobbler mailing list) allow us to use > Cobbler's templating mechanism to template arbitrary files > (not just kickstarts and yum configs) using > Cheetah. This would be usable as a future templating mechanism for > configuration files within Satellite, potentially replacing > Satellite config management without bringing in the problems > of managing a more complicated configuration management > infrastructure. > > At the command line level, it looks like this: > > cobbler system edit --name=foo > --template-files="/srv/source.template=/etc/foo/bar > /srv/source2.template=/etc/baz/glurp" > > Basically this allows a hash of "source=destination" keypairs > to be applied anywhere throughout the cobbler "distro, > profile, system" object chain. These templates can then be > inherited between distributions, > profiles, and systems. Any cobbler variables applied to > "--ksmeta" can > then be evaluated through the template, and the template can > also contain any Cheetah directives of Cobbler snippets (see > cheetahtemplate.org/learn). > > In kickstart %post, a kickstart snippet translates these to a > series of simple wget's to suck down the files and install > them on the systems in > the right locations. This is all automatically built out > for the user > so the provisioning stage automatically deploys the template files: > > A logical extension of this is a call in koan to keep > templates up to date: > > koan --server=cobbler.example.org --system=foo.example.org > --update-files > > This would pull down the files given in "--template-files" > and retemplate them dynamically. > > Essentially you get an ultra-lightweight configuration > management system for free for users who do not want to > assume the complexity of maintaining a Puppet and/or cfengine > infrastructure, which can at times > feel very much like a development exercise. (We also know > of a couple > of major puppet problems presently -- (A) rpmdb corruption, > and (B) packaging each package install in a single yum > transaction leading to a long install time overhead. > > As I know we wanted to streamline Satellite's configuration > management, this may be an interesting proposal as it uses > the same tools as the install system and can manage both in > parallel If someone wanted to use a heavier CMS on top of > things, they still could, though this would provide an option > similar to what they have now, with the additional ability to > use the full power of Cheetah inside their templates. > > Cobbler profiles then become the same concept for managing an > existing system as they do a "to-be-installed" system. > > Anyway, we still have to implement a bit before the above is > feasible, but I wanted to throw the idea out there so we > could be thinking of > it. It seems to be a very powerful idea and also something > that would > be trivial to fit into a GUI. I am a bit worried that while > puppet/cfengine/bcfg2 are awesomely powerful, putting them > into a GUI app for integration reasons does not really offer > any advantages over > using them stock. With the above, we could have a lightweight CM > system in the core Spacewalk app and still allow usage of > those said tools out of band as needed. Should folks /do/ > want to integrate with Puppet or another CMS, they have tools > like this > https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/UsingCobblerWithConfigMa > nagementSystem > that we could do to help them with this, but some "vi" is > still required. > > --Michael > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Spacewalk-list mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list > ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Spacewalk-list mailing list [email protected] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list
