cdist/REAL_README

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[[!meta title="cdist - configuration management"]]
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[[!toc levels=2]]
## Introduction
cdist configures your system and is similar to
other configuration management systems like
[cfengine](http://www.cfengine.org/),
[bcfg2](http://trac.mcs.anl.gov/projects/bcfg2),
[chef](http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/)
and [puppet](http://www.puppetlabs.com/), but
it ticks differently:
* cdist sticks completly to the KISS (keep it simple and stupid) paradigma
* cdist's core is very small (< 1k lines of code)
* There is only one type to extend cdist called ***type***.
* One main development target: ***It must be incredible easy to add new types.***
* cdist is UNIX
* It reuses existing tools like cat, find, mv, ...
* cdist's documentation is bundled as manpages
* cdist is written in POSIX shell
* No special requirements like high level interpreters needed on server or target
### Architecture
* Push mode (server pushes configuration)
* Pull mode planned (client triggers configuration)
* User defines configuration in shell scripts (called ***manifests***)
* Generates internal configuration (cconfig style)
* Uses ***types*** to generate code be executed on the target
* And finally executes the code on the target / applies the configuration
### Features
Stuff that should probably be included in every configuration management,
but is not. Or: The reason why I began to write cdist.
* Speed
* Elegant code
* Clean design
* Good documentation (man pages)
* Meaningful error messages
* No surprise factor
* Consistency in behaviour, naming and documentation
* Easy integration nacked installations
* Simple and well-known DSL: posix shell
* It is very easy to
* extend cdist
* debug cdist-core and cdist-types
* Focus on reuse of existing functionality
* ssh
* sh
* find, rm, ...
## Requirements
### Server
* A posix like shell
* SSH-Client
### Client ("target host")
* A posix like shell
* SSH-Server
## Getting cdist
You can clone cdist from git, which gives you the advantage of having
a version control in place for development of your own stuff as well.
### Installation
To install cdist, execute the following commands:
git clone git://git.schottelius.org/cdist
cd cdist
export PATH=$PATH:$(pwd -P)/bin
# If you want the manpages (requires asciidoc to be installed)
make man
export MANPATH=$MANPATH:$(pwd -P)/doc/man
Afterwards you can run ***cdist-quickstart*** to get an impression on
how to use cdist.
### Available versions
There are at least two branches available:
* master: the development branch
* 1.0: stable branch of version 1.0
Other branches may be available as well for features or bugfixes, but they
may vanish at any point. To select a specific branch use
# Generic code
git checkout -b <name> origin/<name>
# Stay on version 1.0
git checkout -b 1.0 origin/1.0
### Update
To upgrade cdist in the current branch use
git pull
# Also update the manpages
make man
export MANPATH=$MANPATH:$(pwd -P)/doc/man
The version branches are designed to change if there are incompatibilities.
Or the other way round: As long as you stay on 1.0 and do git pull, nothing
should break.
## Support
### IRC
You can join the development ***IRC channel***
[#cLinux on irc.freenode.org](irc://irc.freenode.org/#cLinux).
### Mailing list
Bug reports, questions, patches, etc. should be send to the
[cdist mailing list](http://l.schottelius.org/mailman/listinfo/cdist).
## Used by
If you're using cdist, feel free to send a report to the mailing list.
Interesting information are for instance
* Which services do you manage?
* How many machines do you manage?
* What are the pros/cons you see in cdist?
* General comments/critics
### Nico Schottelius, Systems Group ETH Zurich
Yes, I'm actually eating my own dogfood and currently managing
* [plone](http://plone.org/) (cms)
* [moinmoin](http://moinmo.in/) (wiki)
* [apache](http://httpd.apache.org/) (webserver)
* [kerberos (mit)](http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/) (authentication)
* [ircd-hybrid](http://www.ircd-hybrid.org/) (chat)
* [stunnel](http://stunnel.mirt.net/) (SSL tunnel)
with cdist on a total of **3** production servers of the
[Systems Group](http://www.systems.ethz.ch) at the
[ETH Zurich](http://www.ethz.ch).