Sure:
The kickstart file is a reasonable place to reconfigure some security
parameters on the system. The comment_lines and set_config_value
function make this easy. Suppose we want to change the minimum
password age to a month.
If we want to keep record of the old value:
$comment_lines('/etc/login.defs', 'PASS_MAX_DAYS')
Then to change the actual value:
$set_config_value('/etc/login.defs' ,'PASS_MAX_DAYS', '30')
These will generate the proper perl/sed commands to change or add the
configuration value.
Sometimes the kickstart file may need to modify scripts (typically
bashrc or gdm Inits). The delete_command function can remove all
instances of a bash command:
$delete_command('/etc/gdm/Default/Init', 'exit[ \t]+0').
This was useful for appending content to the script and making sure it
gets executed.
copy_over_file and copy_append_file read file content from the server
and inline it into the kickstart. The kickstart will then write this
content to a destination file on the client, effectively copying a
file from the server to the client. The append version appends to the
client file instead of replacing it. The copy_files method is a
short-hand way of invoking the two file methods repeatedly:
$copy_files([
('w', 'etc/samba/smb.conf'),
('w', 'etc/audit.rules'),
])
This allows a user to keep a file tree (usually inside of the snippets
directory under a 'files' directory) that will be copied onto the
clients. Additionally, the content of these files can be templated.
For example:
---------etc/issue---------
SNIPPET::banner.txt
-------------------------------
This particular example allows a consistent banner to be applied
wherever one is needed. Also, the banner can be changed on a
per-profile and per-system basis.
Sometimes there are decisions that the kickstart file cannot make for
the deployer. In these cases, we need to make a list of things left
for a human to do. The TODO function is a convenience function that
adds readability and consistency to kickstart templates:
At the top:
#set global $todofile = '/root/kstodo'
As needed:
$TODO()
Be sure to correct you audit log settings.
EOF
Using just:
echo "Be sure to correct..." >> /root/kstodo
can cause problems. What if > is used accidentally in place of >>?
Also, it's easy to forget the filename. was it "ks-todo" or
"kstodo"?
set_permissions works similarly in syntax to copy_files. It takes a
list of tuples. This method was included to encourage users to keep
all their permission settings in one area o the kickstart template:
$set_permissions([
('p', 'root', 'root', '700', '/root'),
('f', 'root', 'root', '600', '/root',
'*'),
('r', 'root', 'root', '/etc/cron.*'),
])
The 'p' means, just the one file or directory. 'f' means recurse over
files only (it will descend into directories without changing the
directories themselves. 'r' means recurse over files and directories.
The second, third, and fourth elements are owner, group, and mode,
respectively. Pass an empty string '' to any of those to make no
change. The fifth element is the file or directory to change. In the
case an 'f' is used as the first element, a sixth element is used to
further restrict affected filenames.
The includeall method is a cheeseball function (I don't know if should
be in there), but it includes all files in a given directory into the
template. This allows one directory to contain several miscellaneous
templates that can all be slurped into the kickstart.
$includeall('misc')
I hope that clears things up a bit. Remember, the copy_files method
and the TODO method still seem broken on my end (for some reason,
Cheetah is not substituting them at all).
Anyway, enjoy!
~
Dan
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Michael DeHaan <mdehaan(a)redhat.com
<mailto:mdehaan@redhat.com>> wrote:
Dan Guernsey wrote:
> Fixed some errors in the builtin methods.
>
> There are still some issues with $copy_files and $TODO. I will
resolve
> them later this week.
>
> ~
> Dan
Dan,
Thanks for the patches, I'll check it out and do some testing.
Can you
provide some examples of how someone might use each of these functions
and what they might do?
--Michael
>
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This looks very good. I have only tested "SNIPPET" to make sure it
still works and it does.
$SNIPPET('foo') ends up working as one would expect with the old-style
SNIPPET::foo
The one patch we probably want to see made is the one that makes sure
that any old style SNIPPET::foo calls get replaced so that we can
eliminate the duplicate code there.
The other thing I'd probably like to see is that we do move those defs
out to a file that users can easily add their own functions to. Rather
than this being in site-packages, I think /etc/cobbler/cheetah.conf
would be appropriate. We could have templateapi.py read that file and
use contents from there.
Otherwise, looks very good, and I can see users adding more useful
functions like this over time. We had one recent request to do
something more clever about how we model disk usage, and I can see it
being great for that.
After this gets in, we'll have to see about including the STIG
securification snippets in stock cobbler too, likely
/var/lib/cobbler/snippets/stig so we can do things like:
$SNIPPET('stig/foo')
and so forth.
Thanks! I've applied this and added you to the AUTHORS file. Much
appreciated.
If you'd like to maintain the docs or add more examples, you can do so
here:
though
ultimately I think having the examples as Cheetah comments ("##") in the
/etc/cobbler/cheetah.conf is probably best.
If you don't yet have a Fedora account, you'll need one to log into the
Wiki. It's pretty simple at
.
Once again, thanks, and I'm looking forward to having all the
security/customization snippets as options in Cobbler as that is
certaintly easier than remembering a lot of arcane sed syntax. For
those interested to making patches to any of the above or adding more
functions (or more snippets to consider shipping with Cobbler or just on
the Wiki), those are also always welcome!
--Michael