staging environment discussion

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:16 PM, Mike McGrath <mmcgrath at redhat.com> wrote:
> So as many of you have seen in the commits lists, the staging environment
> is coming along and getting built.  I've hit a policy issue and so I
> thought instead of just doing this in a black hole.  I'd discuss it.
>
> The way I see it there are two ways to do staging environments.  For those
> of you unfamiliar with staging the general idea is to have an environment
> as close to production as feasible.
>
> 1) use identical configs with only minor changes and use /etc/hosts to
> fake things to point where you need them.  Not always possible but
> generally good where you can do it.
>
> 2) use different configs in production and staging.  The differences being
> able to redirect things, using different usernames, passwords, hostnames,
> etc.
>
>
> Each has pros and cons.  Right now I'd like to do 1) but I don't think its
> possible.  2) is going to require a lot of focus.  For example... we won't
> be able to just git merge from staging to production as we could with 1).
>

there is also a combination of #1 and #2. Basically you have to create
3-4 separate network topologies (this is where you have different
configs), and maybe have your bastion/proxy systems different.

           Name            Network
Network A: Development  -- 10.10.0.0/21
             Servers      -- 10.10.0.0/22
             NFS          -- 10.10.4.0/22
Network B: QA           -- 10.10.8.0/21
             Servers      -- 10.10.8.0/22
             NFS          -- 10.10.12.0/22
Network C: Staging      -- 10.10.16.0/21
             Servers      -- 10.10.16.0/22
             NFS          -- 10.10.20.0/22
Network D: Production   -- 10.10.24.0/21
             Servers      -- 10.10.24.0/22
             NFS          -- 10.10.28.0/22
Network E: Management   -- 10.10.32.0/20
	     Puppet       -- 10.10.32.0/21
	     Drac/Serial -- 10.10.48.0/21
Network F: Bastion Network

[Ok I would love to have done this when I was at RH... but didn't
really see it in action til later.]

Basically a box would have 3-4 network connections. The puppet and
drac/serial networks are on all systems so have to be extra protected
as that is where an attacker could walk from system to system. The
bastion network is basically the front end that would do rewrites and
other layers so that configs are the same.

And yes, this might be overkill and probably has holes in it.. I am
doing it from memory on how a site seemed to be set up and had
basically little downtime for critical HR services.

> Security's only an issue in that we don't want people making changes to
> production data from staging and vise versa.  The same people will have
> the same access to both of these environments without exception.
>
> I'm going to continue to think about this.  I've had staging environments
> in the past.  Both went with option 2).  But still.  I'd like to hold this
> discussion so discuss.
>
>        -Mike
>
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-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"