[nycbug-talk] New Setup Questions

[David Lawson]

Actually, if puppet has good BSD support, the package management,  
particularly across multiple hardware architectures and the like,  
seems like a really good fit for it.  From what I recall of the (quite  
old at this point) presentation I saw about it, that was a big  
advantage.  I'm not sure how CFEngine works with package management,  
I'm sure it has a facility for it, but I know a couple admins, several  
of whom are BSD users, who are using it and quite happy with it.   
Fifty boxes is kind of small for that level of administrative  
overhead, but what you pay in effort up front, you get back in the  
long term.

--Dave
On Apr 17, 2009, at 11:01 PM, Matt Juszczak wrote:

> That's what I'm trying to figure out.  These two questions sort of  
> intertwine themselves.  If we decide to go the "ports scripted"  
> route, we'll most likely have scripts like this in SVN:
>
> ./webserver-setup.sh -h<option1> -i<option2>
>
> which will basically do a cvsup /etc/ports-supfile, install  
> necessary ports (all the same version of course), install php, etc.   
> Then, we'd push the configuration files via svn as well.
>
> If we decide to go a package route, we might even put the packages  
> in SVN, so that you can "check out" the repository of packages.
>
> I've looked at puppet, and I've looked at CF engine: puppet seems  
> limited, and CF Engine seems complex.  Seems like it's a pick your  
> poison.
>
> On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Brian Gupta wrote:
>
>> Not to start up the cfengine vs puppet debate again, but one  
>> question. How do you plan to handle package installation?
>> That's one thing where CMS can really help.
>> -Brian
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Matt Juszczak <matt at atopia.net>  
>> wrote:
>>      We're launching an entirely new setup across FreeBSD boxes -  
>> about 50
>>      servers total.  I have two things which I'm still somewhat  
>> debating, and
>>      thought I'd get a second opinion.
>>
>>      First, instead of using CFEngine to manage the boxes, I was  
>> thinking of
>>      using an SVN-based setup.  Each server would checkout their  
>> appropriate
>>      files via SVN, and I would "trigger" each server when it needs  
>> an update
>>      via config files that would be fetched often via either ftp or  
>> svn.  This
>>      is neat and flexible, but not as complex as CFEngine.  Thoughts?
>>
>>      Second, I'm trying to decide how to do packages.  Across the  
>> 50 servers
>>      we'll have about 6 or 7 different hardware sets.  Some will be  
>> Dell, some
>>      IBM, etc.  Most will be 64 bit boxes (to address larger memory  
>> ranges).
>>      Should I set up a single server for each class (and do make  
>> package to
>>      create packages for each box), or should I just compile ports  
>> from source
>>      on each box, verifying that I'm installing the same package  
>> version each
>>      time (which will allow each box to take advantage of the  
>> benefits of its
>>      specific hardware).
>>
>>      Those are my two questions, and I'd appreciate any input  
>> anyone can
>>      provide.  Thanks!
>>
>>      -Matt
>>      _______________________________________________
>>      talk mailing list
>>      talk at lists.nycbug.org
>>      http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>> --
>> - Brian Gupta
>> New York City user groups calendar:
>> http://nyc.brandorr.com/
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