Re: choice of provisioning server?
Quoting Tomer Perry, from the post of Sat, 05 Apr: Ira, xcat now went through major changes, and its now under EPL and hosted at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcat/ Though, xcat1.3 ( based on the old version) is still there. Hey, TomP! good to hear from you... yeah, I forgotto mention... the NAS server I'm going to install this on, was installed with Ubuntu by the previous admin, and for a long list of reasons I'm not changing that now. Xcat is oddly only available in RPMs. I'll be looking at Cobler and Rollout (I see OscarOnDebian is in early beta, and I want something more solid). There's a chance I'll be scrapping this attempt later today and going for CentOS 5.1 and Xcat (among other reasons because I remember it supports Bladecenters well). Last and least, I'll do vanilla kickstart if all else annoys me :-) Thanks, Ira. -- Brand X Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Hi, I must agree here with Ohad. I have been using Puppet in my last 3 projects at 3 different customers. I do consider Puppet as a provisioning service, as I can provision with it practically everything: 1. Configuration files 2. Packages (rpms / debs / solaris pkgs) 3. UNIX accounts (users / passwords / groups) 4. Everything you can just imagine. It is highly customizable and very robust (gee.. what a bunch of buzz words, but i do agree with them here). With every project I have deployed I learned new features of puppet and developed a bigger appreciation for the product. Regarding the kickstart part, Cobbler is a nice tool, which I can also recommend, but personally I just prefer vanilla kickstart, as I have better control over it (atleast, that's how I feel) and I already have a template ks.cfg profile and post install script which I carry with me from one place to another. Once I get to the post install scripts, I deploy a puppet client, and let it do the rest of the job. - Noam On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ohad Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Hi, I also agree with Noam ;) additionally, puppet give you free inventory tool :) I myself don't use Cobbler, I found it too heavy for my needs, I've created a ruby erb template for my kickstart and pull it out of a simple sql db - works great if you want to have customize options for different hosts (even RHE version or arch) but still use one kickstart over a cgi script, I use puppet to do all the rest. if anyone is interested I can send you the script. Ohad On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 7:46 PM, Noam Meltzer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I must agree here with Ohad. I have been using Puppet in my last 3 projects at 3 different customers. I do consider Puppet as a provisioning service, as I can provision with it practically everything: 1. Configuration files 2. Packages (rpms / debs / solaris pkgs) 3. UNIX accounts (users / passwords / groups) 4. Everything you can just imagine. It is highly customizable and very robust (gee.. what a bunch of buzz words, but i do agree with them here). With every project I have deployed I learned new features of puppet and developed a bigger appreciation for the product. Regarding the kickstart part, Cobbler is a nice tool, which I can also recommend, but personally I just prefer vanilla kickstart, as I have better control over it (atleast, that's how I feel) and I already have a template ks.cfg profile and post install script which I carry with me from one place to another. Once I get to the post install scripts, I deploy a puppet client, and let it do the rest of the job. - Noam On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ohad Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Beware of Tivoli Provisioning stuff.. I spend few days with it, and with CentOS 5 (and 4.x). It sucks. really bad. (I haven't tried the latest version which came 3 months ago though). It craps the network config files, xorg.conf files etc.. Thanks, Hetz On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Noam Meltzer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I must agree here with Ohad. I have been using Puppet in my last 3 projects at 3 different customers. I do consider Puppet as a provisioning service, as I can provision with it practically everything: 1. Configuration files 2. Packages (rpms / debs / solaris pkgs) 3. UNIX accounts (users / passwords / groups) 4. Everything you can just imagine. It is highly customizable and very robust (gee.. what a bunch of buzz words, but i do agree with them here). With every project I have deployed I learned new features of puppet and developed a bigger appreciation for the product. Regarding the kickstart part, Cobbler is a nice tool, which I can also recommend, but personally I just prefer vanilla kickstart, as I have better control over it (atleast, that's how I feel) and I already have a template ks.cfg profile and post install script which I carry with me from one place to another. Once I get to the post install scripts, I deploy a puppet client, and let it do the rest of the job. - Noam On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ohad Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Skepticism is the lazy person's default position. my blog (hebrew): http://benhamo.org = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Ira, xcat now went through major changes, and its now under EPL and hosted at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcat/ Though, xcat1.3 ( based on the old version) is still there. Tomer Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: Beware of Tivoli Provisioning stuff.. I spend few days with it, and with CentOS 5 (and 4.x). It sucks. really bad. (I haven't tried the latest version which came 3 months ago though). It craps the network config files, xorg.conf files etc.. Thanks, Hetz On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Noam Meltzer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I must agree here with Ohad. I have been using Puppet in my last 3 projects at 3 different customers. I do consider Puppet as a provisioning service, as I can provision with it practically everything: 1. Configuration files 2. Packages (rpms / debs / solaris pkgs) 3. UNIX accounts (users / passwords / groups) 4. Everything you can just imagine. It is highly customizable and very robust (gee.. what a bunch of buzz words, but i do agree with them here). With every project I have deployed I learned new features of puppet and developed a bigger appreciation for the product. Regarding the kickstart part, Cobbler is a nice tool, which I can also recommend, but personally I just prefer vanilla kickstart, as I have better control over it (atleast, that's how I feel) and I already have a template ks.cfg profile and post install script which I carry with me from one place to another. Once I get to the post install scripts, I deploy a puppet client, and let it do the rest of the job. - Noam On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ohad Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
- Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Same client wants standard images for its RD machines and desktops - all CentOS (and maybe windows laptops too down the line). Two common aproaches for that are Xcat and OSCAR, and I also had experiance with OpenQRM, but that product is EOL. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or a different oe altogether? no ideas anyone? I guess I'll go with Xcat... -- The eighth deadly sin Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
Checkout Cobbler. Puppet is a great tool, you might want to use it if you manage a lot of servers... Ohad On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Thanks, Ira. -- Gzunda the desk Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
poppet - Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Same client wants standard images for its RD machines and desktops - all CentOS (and maybe windows laptops too down the line). Two common aproaches for that are Xcat and OSCAR, and I also had experiance with OpenQRM, but that product is EOL. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or a different oe altogether? no ideas anyone? I guess I'll go with Xcat... -- The eighth deadly sin Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ---MAV Marc A. Volovic Swiftouch, LTD [EMAIL PROTECTED] +972-544-676764 = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: choice of provisioning server?
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 11:27 PM, Ira Abramov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marc A. Volovic, from the post of Mon, 31 Mar: poppet Thanks. Took me 5 minutes to discover it's spelled Puppet, and 20 more of reading through all the FAQs and manuals to realize it does management, not provisioning. You can look at it both ways. We use puppet (still learning it) to provision a few Xen guests remotely. Right now we base the install on an existing Xen image (because cpan install is such a mess that the external software provider just dropped us an image). Just yesterday I noticed something called rollout ( http://dparrish.com/category/projects/rollout/). It's a rip-off of provisioning software developed in my previous workplace which is used to provision 500+ physical RHEL servers (compiled locally from source). The original code is a bit horrendous (being developed by system admins, not programmers) but does the job extremely well. (to clarify, my experience is with the original code, yesterday I just noticed this web site and from the description (and having heard the name of the author before) I'm sure it's just a copy of what I used there over a year ago). The idea is that you sort of assert what software should be installed on the server (be it rpm's, cvs checkouts or whatever) using a giant Perl Hash to describe individual machines, classes of machines and software packages. It can also control any bit of the system configuration and the idea is that you can just kickstart a machine and it will automatically pull down the perl script and configuration at the end of the kickstart process and install everything from there. Individual software package have an opportunity to plugin their own iondividual configuration into the mix and since it's all in perl you have full flexibility to do anything you like (including hacking your foot off with a Swiss Army Chainsaw, of course). The idea is that you should be able to just turn on the machine and forget about it - remember the context it was developed in - 500+ servers which could be literally on the other side of the continent and you want to allow the ops people to just kick-start a replacement server during the night until someone can come over to look at the problem in the morning. You can still update configuration from it later (e.g. add another package or change a config and re-run rollout to apply the change) but this is used mostly during development. For production or staging use it is expected to be used from kickstart, as lint will accumulate over time (it doesn't know about removing unused packages left behind, for instance, or removing old version of the configuration). I'll make it clearer: I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remote-install blades and tower machines via PXE from a smart kickstart or other type of image server. Management after provisioning is a bonus, not a must. Sounds like rollout is just what you want. Cheers, --Amos
