>> > Puppet seems like overkill for what I need. I think all I really need >> > is something to manage config file differences and user accounts. At >> > this point I'm thinking I shouldn't push packages themselves, but >> > portage config files and then let each laptop emerge unattended based >> > on those portage configs. I'm going to bring this to the 'salt' >> > mailing list to see if it might be a good fit. It seems like a much >> > lighter weight application. >> >> Two general points I can add: >> >> 1. Sharing config files turns out to be really hard. By far the easiest >> way is to just share /etc but that is an all or nothing approach, and >> you just need one file to be different to break it. Like /etc/hostname >> >> You *could* create a "share" directory inside /etc and symlink common >> files in there, but that gets very tedious quickly. > > How about using something like unison? I've been using it for a while > now to sync a specific subset of ~ between three computers. > It allows for exclude rules for host-specific stuff.
I think what I'd be missing with unison is something to manage the differences in those host-specific files. - Grant
