Quoting Michael Erickson <erickson.michael at gmail.com>: > Hi folks, > > First I should probably do a quick introduction. I'm Mike Erickson > and I've been a subscriber to the list for some time, but this is my > first post. I'm running a small startup in Minneapolis where we > are building web services using Semantic Web technologies for > specific vertical markets (currently semiconductors). Before this, > I spent about a decade doing Embedded Software. I just saw the > post about Puppet and Chef and found it interesting because I've > been looking into various server configuration management tools. > > Our system runs in Rackspace's cloud using Debian images. All of > our software is written in Python (my own personal habit) using > Django as our web framework. I automatically deploy our software to > new server instances using 'fabric'. Technically I could probably > do just about everything I need using 'fabric' or 'fanout' or other > similar tools. However, I like to keep things organized and certain > aspects of configuring a newly provisioned server, be it front-end > or back-end, really don't belong in 'fabric' scripts. Thus, I > started looking for a proper tool managing server configuration. > > From my research it appears that Cfengine is the "grandfather" of > configuration management tools. Then there are some of the > "upstarts" such as Bcfg2, Puppet, Chef, and others. > > I *really* want to like Bcfg2 as I believe it has some unique and > technically superior things going for it. Unfortunately its > documentation is just horrid. I spent a day with it and may give it > another day...but the available docs make it almost impossible (at > least for me) to get anywhere fast. The people on their IRC channel > are helpful, but I have a hard time committing to a tool built by a > community that can't take the time to write a decent manual. > > I started looking at Cfengine just before I left for 10-days in > Africa, and will be checking that out some more now that I'm home. > > Does anyone on the list have any thoughts regarding any of these > tools? What have you used in the past? What do you like/hate about > something you have used or are using? > > Cheers, > --mike > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > Hi Mike- I am also looking into a configuration management tool myself. Well actually, I've decided to go with Puppet since this tool seems to be what small and large companies are using, that I've had experience with. Before deciding to go with Puppet myself, I did some on line research and from some of the feedback, Puppet seems to offer what companies are looking for. It is written in Ruby so you may be able to add to it as necessary. Although I am not that deep into it yet. Considering that some tools lack well written documentation, I've had good success finding what I am looking for using Puppets on line documentation. To make it easier for myself and plus considering that I like reading Technical material I purchased Puppet Pro from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Puppet-James-Turnbull/dp/1430230576 In short, I would also be interested in hearing others peoples opinion that have had experience with these tools. Thanks- ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.