Re: [cobbler-devel] Support of several network interfaces in system object

[Mann, Owen]

I use it a lot. I consider it a “basic minimum’, since kickstart supports it.  We don’t
use configuration management tools at this time (all built into Cobbler!), and it’s really
convenient to have each machine’s 6 or so interfaces in there. Besides, if PXEing from a
bond or a VLAN needs to be supported, is it that much more work to keep the rest?

Owen Mann, Interactive Data<http://www.interactivedata.com/> Omega
60 Codman Hill Rd, Boxborough, MA 01719
978-795-3758 [e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>
“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to
our method of questioning.” -Werner Heisenberg
"Things are not what they seem; nor are they otherwise." - Buddhist saying

From: cobbler-devel-bounces(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
[mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Jeff Schroeder
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 10:00 PM
To: cobbler development list
Subject: Re: [cobbler-devel] Support of several network interfaces in system object

On Monday, October 20, 2014, Alan Evangelista
<[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
I would like to understand why Cobbler allows user to define several network interfaces in
system object.
Netboot and automated installation processes only require 1 network interface and
supporting multiple
network interfaces introduce complexity. Possible motivations I see:

1) allow user to quickly alternate between different network interfaces for testing
purposes
2) automatically setup all network interfaces in a system

imho motivation 2 is a strong point, but it goes beyond the scope of network installation
and automated
installation. I see in http://projects.theforeman.org/issues/2240 that people are
requesting the same feature in Foreman to support automatic setup of all network
interfaces
using Puppet and its integration with Foreman. I think it makes more sense to delegate
this
task (automatic setup of all network interfaces) to a config management tool (eg Puppet)
than do it in Cobbler, otherwise Cobbler ends up being a "do it all" tool.

Maybe I have a restricted view of how and how much this feature is used, so I'd like
to get
some feedback from Cobbler community.


Regards,
Alan Evangelista

Alan,

At one of my previous employers, I used cobbler to dhcp a from scratch Linux OS that ran
in memory. It would come online and then run a small script to connect to cobbler via the
super simple xmlrpc api, get a list of interfaces (set with the MAC address for each
interface), write out /etc/Iftar, and actually rename all of the interfaces and ip them
with cobbler as the authoritative source.

That might be a more advanced use case but is absolutely a valid one. Please don't
remove a feature like this. My take on config management (puppet, salt, ansible, etc) is
that you should setup the partitioning and network bits before the config management runs.
Please don't alienate users just because you don't use a given feature.


--
Text by Jeff, typos by iPhone


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