[rhn-users] Manage system configuration files through RHN

[Mansour, Michael]

Hi Bram,

There's various solutions for the queries you ask below, but for point
3, I use csync2 which scales to hundreds of nodes without issues.

csync2 has the ability to run different configs and restart services
based on config file changes.

I have tried cfengine, but found it too complicated to setup for
something as simple as syncing data.

For point 1, RHN basically notifies you of updates to servers, but
doesn't speficially "manage" the differences or similiarities between
servers. For this I use the Cluster module in Webmin, which generates a
database of installed packages and can compare server(s) against
server(s).

For point 2, user management is usually best done using LDAP on an
enterprise scale. If you have a small number of machines, or clustered
machines, you can get away with csync2 and local passwd files. For
enterprise level, I recommend OpenLDAP.

Regards,

Michael. 

-----Original Message-----
From: rhn-users-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:rhn-users-bounces at redhat.com]
On Behalf Of Mertens, Bram
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 1:56 AM
To: rhn-users at redhat.com
Subject: [rhn-users] Manage system configuration files through RHN

Hello all,

I'm investigating the possibility to manage our RH servers through RHN.
Currently we are running various versions with various levels of updates
installed and managing these has ebcome quite a challenge.

On top of that we are in the process of implementing a new corporate
policy on security which is posing further restrictions which I'd like
to be able to fullfill this way as well.

>From the documentation I read so far I gather that most of the things
I'd like to be able to do are possible with RHN but so far I haven't
found the documentation that shows exactly HOW to do so.  This makes it
difficult to determine whether or not what I believe is possible
actually is or not.  Also there are probably alternatives to consider as
well and I'm hoping to get some info on that from you.

1) Can we deploy RHN in an enviroment where not all clients that are to
connect to RHN are running the same version of RH or are not updated to
the same level?
The idea is to standardize most of these servers but there several
servers that must be kept at a lower version/update level.

2) Is user management handled at all by RHN?  Or do we need to look into
something like PAM authentication with an LDAP server?  Something like
Red Hat Directory server?

3) We'd also like to manage /etc/sudoers, /etc/hosts, etc. Through this
tool, it appears to us that we'd need the RHN Provisioning service for
this as the Management service doesn't appear to include this
possibility.  Is there any documentation available about this specific
option?  Specifically what is possible and what not?  Restarting
services like logrotate after modifying a configuration file, which
files can be served this way, etc.

Thanks in advance

Bram



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