1600 lines? That's nothing. If a solution was good yesterday, it is good today. Yesterday we fixed a problem by adding code to the kickstart %post section. Today we solved another problem the same way. Tomorrow we'll add more code to %post. Then more code. We're solving problems, buddy. Don't get in our way.
What about legacy machines? Let them wipe and reload. Of course, that speech was a "re-creation" of the "Evil Captain Kirk" from um... Episode, um... [ Emcee whispers ] THIRTY-SEVEN... uhh... called... [ another whisper ] "The Enemy Within." http://snltranscripts.jt.org/86/86hgetalife.phtml But seriously... You know the answer or you wouldn't have been asking about it. Yes, putting that much in %post is bad. Legacy systems aren't going to get updates. A better question is, "How do I convince this other coworker that I'm right?" The answer is: You can't. Some people can't be talked into a better solution. However, if you provide an easier solution they'll switch to it out of laziness. Laziness is the strongest force in the universe. If you set up cfengine, puppet, or any of the fine Configuration Management systems out there, and make it easier to add to that configuration than to add to the %post stanza, he may start using it. If you start porting things from the %post area, one at a time, to your system, eventually he'll get the hint. (Jedi mind trick: don't say that you are back-porting his code. Say that you are creating the equivalent in Puppet so that legacy machines receive the benefit too. Eventually he may be the one to suggest removing the redundancy from %post). Putting things in cfegine or Puppet is, among other things, easier to test that code in %post. You can remove the barrier to entry by writing a good "getting started" doc that includes a working example, and recipes for getting it working, tested, etc. Yes, you could try to change his mind. Or, you could just assume that if you do a better job than him he will eventually go away. That's better than management, that's leadership. And now... since no post of mine is complete with a boring story from days of yore... Back in the 1980s, before I was a sysadmin, Ethernet involved huge thick cables that were literally drilled into ("tapped") to add new connections. It took ages and was very error prone. One slip of the drill and you ruined the hallway's ability to get on the network. People at Bell Labs went on a quest to make Ethernet as easy to install as telephones with modular plugs. Everyone said that it couldn't be done. They said things like "Anyone that understands the physics of how Ethernet works knows you can't possibly do it over twisted pair." So then Bell Labs invented 10base-T: Ethernet over twisted pair, with telephone-like modular jacks. The nay-sayers response, "Oh, sure! If you do it THAT way!" http://www.instantrimshot.com/ Once 10base-T was invented the nay-sayers claimed it was an abomination because "it wasn't Ethernet!". It removed the "bus" structure and turned it into a "star". "That's not ethernet! You changed too much!" Well, nothing changed on the software side. There was basically no barrier to entry other than buying a hub. Those nay-sayers used it anyway because it was so much easier to install. No more drilling and hacking to add a new connection. Whether or not it was "real" Ethernet didn't matter because laziness is more powerful than doctrine. HTH. Let us know how the project goes! Tom _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
