HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0 [LWN.net]

From:		"Sternberg, Kate" <Kate.Sternberg-AT-bm.com>
To:		<corbet-AT-lwn.net>
Subject:		Media Alert: HP Releases Next Version of the Linux Common Operating Environment to Open Source Community
Date:		Wed, 30 May 2007 11:24:47 -0400

 
FYI - HP has just released version 4.0 of the Linux Common Operating
Environment (LinuxCOE), the latest upgrade to the seven-year project
driven by HP engineering contributions. 

For background purposes, the HP Linux Common Operating Environment
(LinuxCOE) is licensed under the GPL and facilitates
provisioning/lifecycle support of Linux systems. HP LinuxCOE was an
internally developed tool to efficiently manage the growing number of
Linux systems (clients and servers) in HP's IT environment.
Essentially, it lets someone custom design a system running Linux via
the LinuxCOE System Designer website (choosing from over 100 Linux
distributions), download a customized boot image onto a USB drive or CD
and then install elsewhere according to the original design. Once a
system is up and running, LinuxCOE provides continued lifecycle support
for patch and package updates. 

Within HP alone, there are over 15,000 systems that were provisioned
with Linux and currently being managed using LinuxCOE. 

Key features of LinuxCOE 4.0 include:

*	The ability to support 100+ distributions from the extended open
	source community, in addition to systems from Red Hat and Novell
*	A provisioning mechanism that allows quick and consistent
	installation on a number of Linux systems at once 
*	A unified patch and package acquisition infrastructure based on
	"Yum"

If you're interested in exploring on the offering
on your own, please visit www.instalinux.com
<http://www.instalinux.com/>  for a test drive or
linuxcoe.sourceforge.net for more info and source code.

(Log in to post comments)

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 30, 2007 20:01 UTC (Wed) by juhl (subscriber, #33245) [Link]

"but I dont see 100's of different distros available.."

No? I just checked DistroWatch and they currently list at least 537 distros (at least that's how many results my search for "all" distributions returned) - http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=All&origin=All&basedon=All&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=All.

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 31, 2007 6:44 UTC (Thu) by pjdc (subscriber, #6906) [Link]

However, the site linked from the press release only offers six.

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 31, 2007 13:44 UTC (Thu) by bryang (guest, #43510) [Link]

Probably a matter of semantics, but each Distro-Version-Arch is counted distinctly for the "100's". And these are contained within the available overlay modules (10 at current count).

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 31, 2007 22:00 UTC (Thu) by pjdc (subscriber, #6906) [Link]

That helps explain why it's not the support nightmare it seemed at first.

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 30, 2007 17:33 UTC (Wed) by pcampe (guest, #28223) [Link]

The last screen requires you to enter the root password, and the page is not encrypted. It's not possible to avoid the definition of the root password and the chosen hostname is checked (in the first step) to be valid, so test.intranet.domain.tld does not work (you can insert an IP instead of the hostname).

This means that basically this is a web service devoted to collecting root password of exposed servers :)

Really it's a nice tool and it could be useful (especially if you deal with different distributions: if you have only one it'd be better to understand how to write "kickstart" files), but I'll not use it until they provide a nice package I can install and use on a local and trusted web server.

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 30, 2007 20:19 UTC (Wed) by maks (subscriber, #32426) [Link]

> Really it's a nice tool and it could be useful
> (especially if you deal with different distributions:
> if you have only one it'd be better to understand how
> to write "kickstart" files)

or preseeding files if you are on the Debian side :)

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 30, 2007 21:45 UTC (Wed) by ksmathers (guest, #2353) [Link]

The key to LinuxCOE is to treat it the way you would an automated IMACD service. Give them your traveling password, then change it to something secure once the install is complete.

I've used LinuxCOE for a couple of years now from inside HP and it can be useful, particularly inside HP where you can store a persistent copy of your installation preferences. Without that it is just a depot for a fairly complete set of distributions.

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 31, 2007 5:41 UTC (Thu) by louis_bouchard (subscriber, #29869) [Link]

>until they provide a nice package I can install and use on a local and >trusted web server.

We are well aware of that, and are actively working on providing RPM and .deb based packages for LinuxCOE.

Keep visiting our site at http://linuxcoe.sourceforge.net where they should be made available as soon as possible.

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 31, 2007 13:47 UTC (Thu) by leem (guest, #45532) [Link]

FWIW, I would recommend you use a disposable 'install' password. However, there are 3 security modes System Designer can run in:

NONE - default, everything is open HTTP/FTP
NORMAL - http on all pages until passwords are in play, then HTTPS
SECURE - everything HTTPS, final image dropped in a secure .htaccess prodtected directory and only you get access user/pass on final page

Also, inside the preseed/autoyast/kickstart files, passwords are encrypted *unless* you're running the instance on a RH box as it's mkpassword doesn't support it, and I'm hesitant to include the perl module that does that in the code as it's not a perl base module and adds yet another dependency on running it.

HP releases Linux Common Operating Environment 4.0

Posted May 31, 2007 13:53 UTC (Thu) by bryang (guest, #43510) [Link]

FWIW, one of the configuration options is to use https whenever passwords are entered. But I certainly echo the "traveling" password approach (since some of the underlying distro install tools -- preseed, etc -- leave the password in clear text)