LWN: Comments on "Multi-system administration with Func"

Multi-system administration with Func

muwlgr — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:53:18 +0000

You have to have quite large scale of requirements to decide to deploy 
and use such a system. And you would not replace it with ease. There are 
several already designed systems, like cfengine, bcfg2, automateit, 
puppet (whihc is used by func), etc. But usually you pick such a system 
only once and then cope with its limitations for a long time before you 
decide to try something next.

Multi-system administration with Func

rwmj — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:34:41 +0000

I'd really like to find out what issues you were having. (Email me, r j o n e s (at) r e d h a t dot c o m)

I'm working on a set of command line tools for administrators of small-scale virtual machine deployments, so you can type commands such as virt-df to get a 'df'-style listing of the disks of all your virtual machines, or virt-ps to get process listings from all of them.

You could also start with the list of links at the bottom of this page: http://virt-manager.org/. However it's not intended that you should need to compile everything from source, unless you want to join in with development. Everything either is or will be in Fedora, and the good bits should eventually make it into RHEL.

Rich.

Multi-system administration with Func

Burgundavia — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:27:30 +0000

No, this is not FUD. I really love all the ET stuff Red Hat is working on, but when I put on
my "busy sysadmin" hat, I realized I got really lost trying to figure out a) where to start b)
was the pain of setup worth the reward.

Multi-system administration with Func

joib — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:08:34 +0000

I have no experience of jumpstart, but I believe it's something more like redhat kickstart,
no? I.e. a system for automated installs with a file containing answers to all the questions
that are usually asked when going through the interactive installer.

cobbler is more like a system for managing kickstarts and pxe boot infrastructure. It has 3
basic types of objects; distros (pxe boot images), profiles (associates a distro with a
specific kickstart file) and finally systems (associates a profile with a MAC and IP address).

So you create a bunch of systems with cobbler, and cobbler can generate a dhcp config (based
on a template you can modify e.g. to include non-cobblerized entries), sets up a tftp server
etc. Then you just PXE boot the systems and they are automatically installed with the profiles
you have specified.

Multi-system administration with Func

clump — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:40:29 +0000

My company has a few host management systems.  So many, in fact, that we're trying to get rid
of most of them.  The most effective one I've used had a simple PostgreSQL configuration
database that had a profile of sorts on all of the hosts it managed.  Putting new hosts on the
network looked like this:

-Add the host to the system.  (command line stanza that included host name, who operated the
host, and who managed the host)
-Create or clone an existing host's profile.  The profile also held software that would be
pushed to the host.  Think Apache plus configs, cron jobs, users, etc.
-Run a command to push software to the host.  (stuff gets pushed over ssh)

That's it.  You could go from a basic OS install to full production in minutes.  Lose a host?
Put a new one there and push the profile.  You're back up in minutes.  Need to put some brand
new software on all your hosts?  Simply make a package, assign it to your hosts, and then push
it out.  Regexes are understood.  

Now, Func appears to cover some of the picture.  For example, it appears to have a bit of
understanding as to what it governs, somewhat like a profile.  What Func can do for restarting
services, we do via something like "hostname_command | parrallel_version_of_ssh
/etc/init.d/httpd restart".

I'm happy to see software like Func out there.  I have already talked to a few higher-ups in
my organization about making our host management system Free Software.  Sadly those in charge
now don't see the value.

Multi-system administration with Func

ernest — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:28:10 +0000

Actually one easy example is doing an update of some package on all your systems, but only
where that service is a version with a known security risk. 

I can easily think of many tasks which I had to do fairly recently where a package like func
would have helped me. I can imagine though that if you don't have at least a few systems to
manage that setting up something like func is more a bother than a helper.

Ernest.

Multi-system administration with Func

rwmj — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:50:19 +0000

they are not the easiest to figure out how the hell to make them useful

You actually have a specific complaint, or are you just spreading FUD? These tools are currently used by large partner companies of Red Hat, who obviously find them useful otherwise they wouldn't continue to use them.

Rich.

Multi-system administration with Func

smitty_one_each — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:11:29 +0000

Cobbler, for a quick glance, sounds like a souped-up version of the Solaris 10 Jumpstart
feature, which can make rolling out new installations somewhat easier.
This comment doesn't really add much, but I'm hoping there is someone with more Cobbler
experience who knows Jumpstart that can pontificate.

Multi-system administration with Func

Burgundavia — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:26:12 +0000

The single problem with func and the rest of the ET stuff is that they are not the easiest to
figure out how the hell to make them useful.