config management

[Tom Brown]

apart from this page

https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/BuiltinConfigManagement

are there any documents or examples around for using cobbler as a basic 
config management system?

thanks

[Michael DeHaan]

Tom Brown wrote:
> apart from this page
>
> https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/BuiltinConfigManagement
>
> are there any documents or examples around for using cobbler as a basic 
> config management system?
>
> thanks
> _______________________________________________
> cobbler mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler

Not really, what would you be looking for if we were to expand the Wiki 
page?

--Michael

[Jeff Schroeder]

On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 8:54 AM, Tom Brown  wrote:
> apart from this page
>
> https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/BuiltinConfigManagement
>
> are there any documents or examples around for using cobbler as a basic
> config management system?

If you have any real questions feel free to ask them on this list. In
our cobbler deployment we use the --template-files for a 1/2 dozen or
so files. It works great and you can just "koan -u" to fix things once
you break them from the server.

[Tom Brown]

> If you have any real questions feel free to ask them on this list. In
> our cobbler deployment we use the --template-files for a 1/2 dozen or
> so files. It works great and you can just "koan -u" to fix things once
> you break them from the server.

i guess if someone could give an example about how say a httpd.conf 
could be supplied and associated with a particular profile that would be 
great and also the steps to get that onto the client, although from the 
docs i have read that seems pretty clear.

thanks

[Jeff Schroeder]

On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Tom Brown  wrote:
> > If you have any real questions feel free to ask them on this list. In
> > our cobbler deployment we use the --template-files for a 1/2 dozen or
> > so files. It works great and you can just "koan -u" to fix things once
> > you break them from the server.
>
> i guess if someone could give an example about how say a httpd.conf could be
> supplied and associated with a particular profile that would be great and
> also the steps to get that onto the client, although from the docs i have
> read that seems pretty clear.

Make a directory like /etc/cobbler/templates and put your httpd.conf
in there. Then you could do a command like this:
cobbler system edit --name webserver1
--template-files="/etc/cobbler/templates/httpd.conf.webfarm=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf"

On a recent cobbler build, there is a snippet called koan_environment
that will put /etc/profile.d/cobbler.sh to make koan magically work by
always exporting COBBLER_SERVER. From the webserver you can then just
run "koan -u" and it will download the files for you. This should be
automatically done at the end of the kickstart for new builds if you
have the "download_config_files" snippet towards the end of your
kickstart post.

Does this make sense? Cheetah templating can make this a lot more
advanced, but that is how you can do basic file distribution with
cobbler. We do light cheetah templating with the files but nothing
crazy.

A HUGE gotcha with these files is you need to put "#raw" at the
beginning of the script (before the shebang line) and "#end" at the
very end where you want non-cheetah code. Test this out with your
templates. Does that make sense?

[Jeff Schroeder]

On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Jeff Schroeder  wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Tom Brown  wrote:
> > > If you have any real questions feel free to ask them on this list. In
> > > our cobbler deployment we use the --template-files for a 1/2 dozen or
> > > so files. It works great and you can just "koan -u" to fix things once
> > > you break them from the server.
> >
> > i guess if someone could give an example about how say a httpd.conf could be
> > supplied and associated with a particular profile that would be great and
> > also the steps to get that onto the client, although from the docs i have
> > read that seems pretty clear.
>
> Make a directory like /etc/cobbler/templates and put your httpd.conf
> in there. Then you could do a command like this:
> cobbler system edit --name webserver1
> --template-files="/etc/cobbler/templates/httpd.conf.webfarm=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf"

Also note you have to manually rsync /etc/cobbler/templates. Cobbler
replicate isn't intelligent enough to replicate templates and there is
no standard cobbler template directory right now.

[Tom Brown]

> > Make a directory like /etc/cobbler/templates and put your httpd.conf
> > in there. Then you could do a command like this:
> > cobbler system edit --name webserver1
> > --template-files="/etc/cobbler/templates/httpd.conf.webfarm=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf"
>
> Also note you have to manually rsync /etc/cobbler/templates. Cobbler
> replicate isn't intelligent enough to replicate templates and there is
> no standard cobbler template directory right now.

thanks for this - makes sense i think so let me give it a try

tom

[Michael DeHaan]

Jeff Schroeder wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Jeff Schroeder  wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Tom Brown  wrote:
> > > > If you have any real questions feel free to ask them on this list. In
> > > > our cobbler deployment we use the --template-files for a 1/2 dozen or
> > > > so files. It works great and you can just "koan -u" to fix things once
> > > > you break them from the server.
> > >
> > > i guess if someone could give an example about how say a httpd.conf could be
> > > supplied and associated with a particular profile that would be great and
> > > also the steps to get that onto the client, although from the docs i have
> > > read that seems pretty clear.
> >
> > Make a directory like /etc/cobbler/templates and put your httpd.conf
> > in there. Then you could do a command like this:
> > cobbler system edit --name webserver1
> > --template-files="/etc/cobbler/templates/httpd.conf.webfarm=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf"
>
> Also note you have to manually rsync /etc/cobbler/templates. Cobbler
> replicate isn't intelligent enough to replicate templates and there is
> no standard cobbler template directory right now.

Good point.... A couple of ways we could possibly fix this.

(A)  By convention, use some template root.

(B)  Loop through the templates assigned to any cobbler object and scp 
those with cobbler replicate.

A seems cleaner to me, possibly /etc/cobbler/config_templates/ ?

[Jeff Schroeder]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 4:33 AM, Michael DeHaan  wrote:
> Jeff Schroeder wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Jeff Schroeder 
> > wrote:
> > > On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Tom Brown  wrote:
> > > > > If you have any real questions feel free to ask them on this list. In
> > > > > our cobbler deployment we use the --template-files for a 1/2 dozen or
> > > > > so files. It works great and you can just "koan -u" to fix things once
> > > > > you break them from the server.
> > > >
> > > > i guess if someone could give an example about how say a httpd.conf
> > > > could be
> > > > supplied and associated with a particular profile that would be great
> > > > and
> > > > also the steps to get that onto the client, although from the docs i
> > > > have
> > > > read that seems pretty clear.
> > >
> > > Make a directory like /etc/cobbler/templates and put your httpd.conf
> > > in there. Then you could do a command like this:
> > > cobbler system edit --name webserver1
> > >
> > > --template-files="/etc/cobbler/templates/httpd.conf.webfarm=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf"
> >
> > Also note you have to manually rsync /etc/cobbler/templates. Cobbler
> > replicate isn't intelligent enough to replicate templates and there is
> > no standard cobbler template directory right now.
>
> Good point.... A couple of ways we could possibly fix this.
>
> (A)  By convention, use some template root.
>
> (B)  Loop through the templates assigned to any cobbler object and scp those
> with cobbler replicate.
>
> A seems cleaner to me, possibly /etc/cobbler/config_templates/ ?

Please please please :)

Would it be possible for a clean way to override that area so we don't
have to update a whole bunch of existing system records? We are using
/srv/templates.

Thanks

[Michael DeHaan]

Jeff Schroeder wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 4:33 AM, Michael DeHaan  wrote:
> > Jeff Schroeder wrote:
> > > On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Jeff Schroeder 
> > > wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Tom Brown  wrote:
> > > > > > If you have any real questions feel free to ask them on this list. In
> > > > > > our cobbler deployment we use the --template-files for a 1/2 dozen or
> > > > > > so files. It works great and you can just "koan -u" to fix things once
> > > > > > you break them from the server.
> > > > >
> > > > > i guess if someone could give an example about how say a httpd.conf
> > > > > could be
> > > > > supplied and associated with a particular profile that would be great
> > > > > and
> > > > > also the steps to get that onto the client, although from the docs i
> > > > > have
> > > > > read that seems pretty clear.
> > > >
> > > > Make a directory like /etc/cobbler/templates and put your httpd.conf
> > > > in there. Then you could do a command like this:
> > > > cobbler system edit --name webserver1
> > > >
> > > > --template-files="/etc/cobbler/templates/httpd.conf.webfarm=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf"
> > >
> > > Also note you have to manually rsync /etc/cobbler/templates. Cobbler
> > > replicate isn't intelligent enough to replicate templates and there is
> > > no standard cobbler template directory right now.
> >
> > Good point.... A couple of ways we could possibly fix this.
> >
> > (A)  By convention, use some template root.
> >
> > (B)  Loop through the templates assigned to any cobbler object and scp those
> > with cobbler replicate.
> >
> > A seems cleaner to me, possibly /etc/cobbler/config_templates/ ?
>
> Please please please :)
>
> Would it be possible for a clean way to override that area so we don't
> have to update a whole bunch of existing system records? We are using
> /srv/templates.
>
> Thanks

Well, we could do an scp for each file ....  doesn't seem terribly evil.

(I am assuming most people doing replicate will have invoked ssh-agent 
first or are using authorized_keys anyway...)

--Michael

[Jeff Schroeder]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 7:26 AM, Michael DeHaan  wrote:
> Jeff Schroeder wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 4:33 AM, Michael DeHaan 
> > wrote:
> > > Jeff Schroeder wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Jeff Schroeder 
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Tom Brown  wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > If you have any real questions feel free to ask them on this list. In
> > > > > > > our cobbler deployment we use the --template-files for a 1/2 dozen or
> > > > > > > so files. It works great and you can just "koan -u" to fix things
> > > > > > > once
> > > > > > > you break them from the server.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > i guess if someone could give an example about how say a httpd.conf
> > > > > > could be
> > > > > > supplied and associated with a particular profile that would be great
> > > > > > and
> > > > > > also the steps to get that onto the client, although from the docs i
> > > > > > have
> > > > > > read that seems pretty clear.
> > > > >
> > > > > Make a directory like /etc/cobbler/templates and put your httpd.conf
> > > > > in there. Then you could do a command like this:
> > > > > cobbler system edit --name webserver1
> > > > >
> > > > > --template-files="/etc/cobbler/templates/httpd.conf.webfarm=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf"
> > > >
> > > > Also note you have to manually rsync /etc/cobbler/templates. Cobbler
> > > > replicate isn't intelligent enough to replicate templates and there is
> > > > no standard cobbler template directory right now.
> > >
> > > Good point.... A couple of ways we could possibly fix this.
> > >
> > > (A)  By convention, use some template root.
> > >
> > > (B)  Loop through the templates assigned to any cobbler object and scp
> > > those
> > > with cobbler replicate.
> > >
> > > A seems cleaner to me, possibly /etc/cobbler/config_templates/ ?
> >
> > Please please please :)
> >
> > Would it be possible for a clean way to override that area so we don't
> > have to update a whole bunch of existing system records? We are using
> > /srv/templates.
> >
> > Thanks
>
> Well, we could do an scp for each file ....  doesn't seem terribly evil.
>
> (I am assuming most people doing replicate will have invoked ssh-agent first
> or are using authorized_keys anyway...)

A seems like a much cleaner and simpler option. Just have a setting
for template_root that defaults to /etc/cobbler/config_templates/. You
could certainly just not support weirdos like us and force us to move
all existing templates to /etc/cobbler/config_templates. I'd just
rather not run sed on every system record if at all possible though.