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