I'm sure puppet and cf-engine have quite a few strengths of their own.
Assuming the strength is in the ability to template almost any
configuration possible , it won't be a great deal of difference.
I am forced to use Shell code to detect certain cases inside the
Kickstart ( for example , to determine network connectivity ).
AS for "Changes over a lifetime" , whether we put the changes in one
product or another, it still requires us to be tidy, strict and always
back-up changes in the "configuration manager" , what seems to be true
problem in a growing startup company .
On Wed, 2011-09-21 at 11:02 +0100, David Lee wrote:
Idan Shinberg wrote:
> Hello
>
> I'm a heavy user of post Installation Code in the kickstart File.
> Due to multiple profiles requirements , I've decided to devide my post
> installation code into various cobbler SNIPPETS. [...]
My reply isn't about the detail, but rather about the principles.
It is tempting to try to get kickstart to do a lot of system
configuration. But I question that. My preference is to look at things
differently.
Just for the moment, forget about installation (I'll return to it
later). In the lifetime of the installed system, there will be ongoing
maintenance and configuration issues that need addressing. These, in
their own right, need some sort of management over that lifetime; that
is where configuration products such as cfengine or puppet etc. come
into play, to manage configuration changes.
Returning to installation: Consider using one of those configuration
products over the lifetime of the system. Then regard the immediate
post-install things, which you may currently be doing in your kickstart
"post", not as the final stage of the install, but rather as the first
stage of subsequent configuration, and get cfengine, puppet, etc. to do
them. Keep the kickstart post-install to a bare minimum; just enough to
get cfengine, puppet, etc. started. I understand that cobbler already
includes hooks to handle puppet in this way. (We use cfengine and do a
little post-install snippet work to bootstrap that.)
Just a thought...
--
| Idan Shinberg | IT Manager |
Superfish.com | idan(a)superfish.com
I discover products using Superfish visual search.