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I wasn't able to find clear docs on the manifest functionality via Google searching, but this seems logical to me. Given great packages like blueprint, does Puppet have the ability to reverse-engineer a machine config? If yes, what's the command(s)?

I'd use blueprint except I'm not sure it works on SmartOS/Solaris. Thanks!

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This is an area where I've been met with a great deal of frustration in Solaris. One unreasonable way I've found that could work for Solaris global zones would be to create differential flars (one from the beginning, then one afterwards), then extract the differential flar's cpio archive and pass it to a DIY monkeyscript that would create a Puppet module.

When you have ZFS root pools you can just create a new BE, make your changes, lucompare and send that to DIY monkeyscripts which can spit out your Puppet modules. But again that doesn't help with non-global zones.

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+1 for a specific answer! I think this lays a groundwork for actually accomplishing the task. Funny enough, since my last post I actually decided to migrate to CentOS. But I think this may help future searchers. – DeLongey Mar 12 at 21:39
I also found that the Solaris tool bart output may be useful. bart functions in the same vein as AIDE on Linux. They say not to run bart against a non-global zone's filesystem, but I bet you could run it inside the zone OK. learningsolaris.com/lab-the-bart – Jodie C Mar 24 at 4:38
oh, and this is huge. not sure how i've never heard of this before.... ZFS diff! – Jodie C May 17 at 1:16
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Puppet != blueprint. The core puppet tools do not do reverse engineering, from what I have read about blueprint, it is limited to systems based on rpm/deb packaging systems, which is not used by SmartOS.

But this doesn't tell us much, it certainly seems possible that someone could develop a tool for SmartOS to reverse engineer it, but the tools you mentioned do not seem to do that. I am not aware any tool that does work for SmartOS.

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Agreed, I hoped I could find something but perhaps there will be benefits in the long-run by manually creating manifests – DeLongey Jan 25 at 23:28
I probably would not have clicked accept on this answer. While I addressed most of your points, It is entirely possible someone else knows of a tool. If you heave it un-accepted, then it might encourage some other more knowledgeable person to suggest the tool for you. – Zoredache Jan 25 at 23:32
I'll unaccept it but after researching this for an hour and seeing an upvote already, I'm not sure something exists ;) – DeLongey Jan 25 at 23:42
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