Not wanting to hijack the thread from the OP, but this subject interests me
for the following reason. I work on a software system where one customer has
about 10000 systems at about 500 locations. Remote systems are categorized
as one of 3 types/configurations. Automated management of them is essential,
including upgrades, but seldom upgrades "to the latest and greatest" as
stability is very important. Upgrades need to "just work", and not require
manual intervention. Currently, they're all on Windows in one form or
another (ugh!). The systems in question have very limited capabilities, and
the people on site have very limited permissions.
Other potential customers have similar size systems, and I certainly expect
someone to realize the value of Linux for this. I'd like to have a solution
in my mind when the time comes.
I've considered the idea of a custom distribution to do this. There is no
doubt in my mind, that any such distribtuion would be based on an existing
one, with tweaks that deal with where updates come from, and what packages
are availble, etc. Gentoo or Debian are the two likely candidates. I'm not
*sure* a customized distribution is appropriate.
I think you should take a look at:
http://www.reductivelabs.com/projects/puppet/index.html
http://www.cfengine.org/
Best regards
Jose
