Questions tagged [configuration-management]
Configuration Management refers to establishing and maintaining standardized system configurations within an organization. This tag encompasses the process of defining the configuration profiles, and the software used to manage and deploy it.
378
questions
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How can the little guys effectively learn and use Puppet? [closed]
Six months ago, in our not-for-profit project we decided to start migrating our system management to a Puppet-controlled environment because we are expecting our number of servers to grow ...
- 1,709
83
votes
7
answers
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Why use Chef/Puppet over shell scripts?
New to Puppet and Chef tools. Seems like the job that they are doing can be done with shell scripting. Maybe it was done in shell scripts until these came along.
I would agree they are more readable. ...
- 1,059
82
votes
5
answers
9k
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Choosing between meaningful and meaningless hostnames [closed]
Assume an environment with a puppet-managed cluster of different servers - various hardware, software, operating systems, virtual/dedicated, etc.
Would you choose meaningful hostnames (mysqlmaster01.....
- 958
72
votes
2
answers
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Why is it so difficult to upgrade between major versions of Red Hat and CentOS?
"Can we upgrade our existing production EL5 servers to EL6?"
A simple-sounding request from two customers with completely different environments prompted my usual best-practices answer of "yes, but ...
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71
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6
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11k
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What should NOT be managed by puppet?
I'm learning my way through configuration management in general and using puppet to implement it in particular, and I'm wondering what aspects of a system, if any, should not be managed with puppet?
...
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55
votes
6
answers
14k
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Puppet vs Chef, pro and contra from users and use cases [closed]
I already googled and read the "to-puppet-or-to-chef-that-is-the-question" article.
I'm interested in use cases, real world implementations in which people had choosen one or the other on real ...
- 11k
52
votes
12
answers
25k
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How to record server changes?
So we've all probably had this situation: you debug some problem, only to realize it was caused by a config change you made six months ago, and you can't remember why you did it. So you undo it and ...
48
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1
answer
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Chef best Practices/Questions
I use and love Puppet. I moved to a new company and they are adopting Chef. So I'm trying to learn Chef but am having a hard time piecing it all together because I still think in Puppet =)
These ...
- 503
44
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2
answers
53k
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How do I enable additional debugging output from Ansible and Vagrant?
I am investigating Ansible for server and application provisioning. My application is currently provisioned with shell scripts in Vagrant. Rather than rewriting my scripts, I took a sample and ...
- 1,757
40
votes
0
answers
6k
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What advantages/features does Puppet or Chef offer over Salt (or vice versa)? [closed]
I am looking at rolling out a new configuration management tool to replace our home-grown solution. The defacto standards are Chef and Puppet, both of which are Ruby-centric (though can be used to ...
- 3,437
38
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8
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What tool do you recommend to track changes on a Linux/Unix server
I manage several Linux servers for clients in several roles like email, caching, web serving, filtering, firewalling/routing, and so on.
Since I don't own these computers and just provide remote ...
- 132k
31
votes
2
answers
2k
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Is Configuration Management useable for a small number of servers?
If I use something like Ansible or Puppet, and I only have two servers, is that defeating the purpose of using these products? I thought that if I configured one server, I could use one of these to ...
- 2,348
31
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7
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How to handle SSH port changes with Ansible?
I'm trying to use Ansible for automating the setup process of new server instances. One of the setup tasks changes the default SSH port, therefore requiring me to update the hosts list.
Is it ...
- 1,799
31
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3
answers
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How can I manage hundreds of IPMI BMCs?
I have over 200 computers which can provide IPMI services. The servers are manufactured by several different companies (SuperMicro, Dell, etc.), and there are 6-7 BMC models from about 5 different ...
- 24k
29
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10
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14k
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Are configuration management tools (Puppet, Chef) capable of keeping installed packages up to date?
This is probably a simple question for those of you already running configuration management tools. Are configuration management tools such as Puppet or Chef the right approach for keeping installed ...
- 4,879
29
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5
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How can a Linux Administrator improve their shell scripting and automation skills?
In my organization, I work with a group of NOC staff, budding junior engineers and a handful of senior engineers; all with a focus on Linux. One interesting step in the way the company grows talent is ...
- 198k
24
votes
7
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automated linux deployment and config management at small scale - is it worth it?
I'm about to deploy ~25 servers running Debian. The machines will have different roles - web servers, Java appservers, proxies, MySQL boxes. The environment will probably not grow much in the future - ...
- 30.2k
24
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3
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Configuration management: push versus pull based topology
The more established configuration management (CM) systems like Puppet and Chef use a pull-based approach: clients poll a centralized master periodically for updates. Some of them offer a masterless ...
- 2,922
23
votes
5
answers
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puppet: force service restart after configuration file was modified
how can i ensure that if new version of configuration file is downloaded via puppet from master repository to one of managed servers relevant service is restarted.
typical scenario - let's say there ...
- 30.2k
18
votes
5
answers
9k
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Best practice for testing chef recipes?
My team has created a large number of chef cookbooks. I was wondering what methods and frameworks I should look into so we can start creating tests to assure that our nodes are configured properly?
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5
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When is it appropriate to use a configuration manager (eg Puppet / Chef / Ansible)?
At my current workplace, I look after two VMware host machines, an OpenBSD physical machine, three Debian VM's, and six Windows Server VM's (2008/2012).
I'm considering implementing a configuration ...
- 183
17
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4
answers
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How to do a git pull/push using ansible
I am trying to do a git pull/push using ansible.
I am running ansible on one server and want to automate or orchestrate a git pull/push on a remote host.
Now since i didn't find a mmodule to do this ...
- 505
17
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5
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What's the strengths and weaknesses of existing configuration management systems? [closed]
I was looking up here for some comparisons between CFEngine, Puppet, Chef, bcfg2, AutomateIt and whatever other configuration management systems might be out there, and was very surprised I could find ...
16
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7
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2k
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What are the right questions to ask when deciding whether to use Chef or Puppet?
I am about to start a new project which will, in part, require deploying many identical nodes of approximately three different classes:
Data nodes, which will run sharded instances of MongoDB.
...
- 1,328
15
votes
2
answers
9k
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How to split out Prometheus config files?
Right now we're using Prometheus for our monitoring and we have a lot of config (our prometheus.yml main config file is 1400+ lines long).
I would like to split this out into logical groupings (maybe ...
- 581
14
votes
15
answers
2k
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What features would you add to Firefox to get it into the enterprise?
Firefox adoption in the home/personal user base seems to be growing fine, but adoption in the enterprise is not going anywhere quickly.
My view on this is because SysAdmins are not promoting it ...
- 2,186
13
votes
1
answer
73k
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How do I print the current hostname of a host in ansible
I wrote a role to edit the motd when user log into the machine, but I want to personalize the motd to print the hostname of the machine
What variable do I use? or how do I do this? template? how?
I ...
- 505
13
votes
4
answers
13k
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Suggestions for making sysfs parameters persist across reboots
I'm experimenting with large changes to Linux system runtime parameters exposed through the sysfs virtual file system.
What is the most efficient way to maintain these parameters so that they persist ...
- 198k
11
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3
answers
5k
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What tool can I use to manage the configuration of my Windows Server environments
I help manage environments for an application that uses cloud-based Windows server VMs. The application stack consists of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2008, IIS, and ...
- 431
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5
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How do you keep up with Nagios/Capistrano configs when using EC2?
I use Amazon EC2 for my mobile app. Depending on load of the application at a given time, I might spawn new instances and then take them down when load is lower to save costs.
How does one keep up ...
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11
votes
2
answers
7k
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How to do docker-compose down without the config file that made the up?
When you do docker-compose up, it's based on a docker-compose.yml file.
This usually brings up a network, builds and runs multiple services. If you do the up with the -d flag, the docker-compose ...
- 365
10
votes
3
answers
17k
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Set sysctl.conf parameters with Puppet
This was a breeze in CFEngine... But I'm in a Puppet environment now, and need to be able to assign/ensure/check certain sysctl.conf variables. In the CFEngine world, I could simply check for specific ...
- 198k
10
votes
1
answer
931
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Configuration Management overkill for 3 node clusters?
I have 2-3 node clusters for our load balancers and various web applications. I'm having to make the change in QA first, then in staging (on 2-3 servers), then in production (on 2-3) servers. Is a ...
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10
votes
1
answer
5k
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Puppet: managing (lots of) Apache VirtualHosts
I'm learning my way through configuration management in general and using puppet to implement it in particular. I have already done some generic research (also on SF) and right now I'm considering ...
- 5,886
10
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Ansible - Access through Bastion w/ MFA
In my current environment, I have all my Linux servers only accessible through a bastion host, which has MFA enabled.
I've managed to get Ansible to successfully talk to servers through the bastion, ...
- 201
9
votes
3
answers
561
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Configuration management for 'single server multiple admins'
We've set up a server that's running the infrastructure for a small association. So far, we've tried to manage the configuration with Ansible, but that has not been a great success. Perhaps we're ...
- 177
9
votes
2
answers
4k
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HP ProLiant system preparation/deployment techniques (Array, BIOS, firmware, etc.)
I spend a lot of my time with HP ProLiant systems and Linux installations. Due to the nature of the business I work in, I don't have the luxury of being able to deploy large numbers of identical ...
- 198k
8
votes
2
answers
1k
views
How can I use the output of a command in cfengine3
I want to list a directory content and use the result somewhere else:
bundle agent test
{
commands:
"ls /tmp/test/";
reports:
ubuntu::
"print output here for example";
# ...
- 166
8
votes
7
answers
4k
views
Version Controlling Foreman & Puppet
I have just setup Foreman for the first time & am not sure how to go about putting all of my configurations under version control. I know I can use Git for each module I install on my Puppet ...
- 323
7
votes
9
answers
44k
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ConfigMgr 2012 - How to automatically make updates available to computers without forcing them to be installed?
I'm using System Center Configuration Manager 2012 with the Software Update Point feature; however, in this environment patching has to be strictly manual, because server reboots need to be approved ...
- 71.3k
7
votes
2
answers
20k
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Ansible : using different sudo user for different hosts
Recently started using ansible. We have servers where the application is setup under different users, like in server xyz.com, unix user is xyz_user and so on.
So in case of xyz.com,
ansible xyz.com -...
- 2,599
7
votes
3
answers
6k
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How to manage linux workstations with policies
I am going to be administering a small network of linux based workstations for a charity institution (not all have the same distro- some are ubuntu and some are fedora). Is there something in Linux ...
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7
votes
8
answers
5k
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What configuration items do you track for proper configuration management? [closed]
As a professional system administrator, what configuration items do you consider it essential to track to perform proper configuration or change management?
For example, in Windows, do you track ...
- 3,362
7
votes
1
answer
11k
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Is there any way to see the group_vars, host_vars, etc. available to a host in ansible?
So I just started a new company, and while familiarizing myself with the ansible repository, I was wondering if there's any way to see the variables that come from group_vars, host_vars and all that ...
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7
votes
2
answers
3k
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Puppet configuration using augeas fails if combined with notify
I'm having a problem with the following Puppet manifest, which is meant
to enable the passwdqc pam module on a RHEL-6 system (this is using
Puppet 0.25.5 and augeas 0.7.2):
augeas { 'authconfig':
...
- 44.9k
7
votes
2
answers
14k
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How to comment out / uncomment a line in a configuration file with Augeas?
Assumming that I have the following in the /etc/syslog.conf file:
# Log all kernel messages to the console.
# Logging much else clutters up the screen.
#kern.* /dev/console
I ...
- 51.8k
7
votes
2
answers
394
views
Is there a recommended automated production environment setup for Microsoft stack?
We are looking at rebuilding our small production running redundant servers with IIS, .Net 4, MSSqlServer 2003 setup.
The previous tri-server configuration evolved organically and has a lot of hand-...
7
votes
1
answer
8k
views
Puppet package "ensure => latest" doesn't always work
I have a unique situation where the Puppet package ensure => latest directive only worked on some of my systems. Out of 30 servers, the packages updated properly on all but 4. I'm trying to get ...
- 198k
7
votes
2
answers
868
views
Securing the primary Ansible user
It seems that there are only two reasonable approaches for the primary Ansible user:
Using root
Using another user (e.g., ansible) with NOPASSWD sudo access
The first option is a no-go since I ...
- 10.9k
7
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How to put FreeBSD configuration under Revision Control?
I heard once that in Linux it's possible to put whole /etc/ directory into repository. In fact i already done too much crap on server and I quite disoriented what exactly is setup in there at all.
...
- 1,584