Prepackaged configurations

[Carwyn Edwards]

John Hearns wrote:

>>In an ideal world, someone could maintain the canonical best practice
>>setup for say a locked-down desktop lab, and everyone else just
>>clicks/types "install me a locked down desktop lab system," applies any
>>site-local tweaks, and that's it.

> Do things like LCFG http://www.lcfg.org/ help?

Yes, this is exatly what it does (and has been for many many years).

Our technicans only have to define things like this in the master config 
for a machine:

/* mymachine's config profile  */
 

#include <lcfg/os/redhat9.h>
#include <lcfg/hwbase/dell_optiplex_gx240.h>
#include <inf/sitedefs.h>
#include <inf/wire_c.h>
#include <inf/officedesktop.h> 


#include <inf/postgresql_rh9.h>
 

dhclient.mac 00:06:5B:34:F5:7E
 

inv.sno                 <snip>
inv.allocated           cedward1
inv.location            JCMB-<snip>
inv.manager             cedward1
 

/* End of file */


.. then shove in a CD or PXE boot. The whole point of it is that _it 
does_ just "install me a locked down desktop lab system".

The key to LCFG is that its actions work beyond initial install. Any 
changes made to the config post install are then communicated to the 
client and acted upon. For example if I remove the line:

#include <inf/postgresql_rh9.h>

Then the machine will remove all the packages associated with being a 
postgresql server. It might also stop the daemon and do some cleanup 
depending on how the configration component is written (see the docs for 
terminology).

Another example is the "dhcpclient.mac" entry above. It does more than 
associate the mac to the machine for example. Defining it in the 
_client_ profile makes the dhcp server's profile pick it up and triggers 
a rewrite of the dhcpd.conf on the dhcp server that's running on the 
"wire_c" subnet.

I'll reply to Havoc's post in more detail in a minute.

Carwyn