[nycbug-talk] New Setup Questions

Brian Gupta brian.gupta at gmail.com
Sat Apr 18 23:54:52 EDT 2009


Feel free to ping me if you have any questions, or better yet, ping the
mailing list for the NY Puppet UG: http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-nyc

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Matt Juszczak <matt at atopia.net> wrote:

> Setting this up on two test servers and seeing how it does :) I had just
> read before that it had serious limitations working with multiple operating
> systems.
>
>
> On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Brian Gupta wrote:
>
>  Matt,
>>
>> I'm gonna talk about puppet since that's what I know. With puppet, since
>> you are running a centralized configuration
>> management system, you can keep your config files in puppet.
>>
>> Puppet understands a number of resources types. These include:
>> - Files
>> - Users
>> - Packages
>> - Services
>> - Cron
>> - sshkeys
>>
>> and many more.. See here for a relatively full list:
>> http://reductivelabs.com/trac/puppet/wiki/TypeReference
>>
>> In addition.. Puppet can exec arbitrary code in the event that what you
>> need to do is not yet supported.
>>
>> Puppet let's you structure nodes and classes in an object hierarchy. Very
>> cool when work with related machine types.
>>
>> I'm curious how you found puppet limited? (Particularly as compared to
>> your SVN proposal).
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Brian
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Matt Juszczak <matt at atopia.net> 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/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> - Brian Gupta
>>
>> New York City user groups calendar:
>> http://nyc.brandorr.com/
>>
>> [tooltip_18px_18px.png]
>>
>>


-- 
- Brian Gupta

New York City user groups calendar:
http://nyc.brandorr.com/
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