[Spacewalk-list] Configuration Management

[Michael DeHaan]

Fabien Dupont wrote:
> Ok. I'm trying Puppet. Maybe I could help at some point if you try to 
> integrate it... And I'll probably have a better look to Spacewalk when 
> PostgreSQL will be supported.
> Thanks for the answer.
>
> 2009/1/23 Mike McCune <mmccune at redhat.com <mailto:mmccune at redhat.com>>
>
>     Fabien Dupont wrote:
>
>         Hi.
>
>         I'm a recent Cobbler user and I've seen Spacewalk has
>         integrated Cobbler in v0.4.
>         I would like to do configuration management but can't migrate
>         to Spacewalk (no Oracle policy...).
>
>         Then I would like know which configuration management tool is
>         used in Spacewalk if not internal one ? I'm looking forward
>         Puppet and CfEngine, but would rather stay close to Spacewalk
>         to easily migrate when it will support PostgreSQL.
>
>
>     currently it is a home-grown configuration management system that
>     is specific to Spacewalk.
>
>     Various thoughts and discussions have taken place about
>     integrating puppet or cfengine with Spacewalk but it isn't
>     anything anyone is currently working on.
>
>     Mike
>     -- 
>     Mike McCune
>     mmccune AT redhat.com <http://redhat.com>
>     Engineering               | Portland, OR
>     RHN Satellite             | 650.567.9039x79248
>
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I've shared my comments on this on Cobbler list, since you also posted 
there:

https://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/cobbler/2009-January/002389.html

This probably would be a good opportunity to start discussing the future 
of Spacewalk config management on-list, no?

Namely I find the idea of sharing variables that are used for kickstart 
with the CMS rather interesting, as well as a macro-based templating 
system (like Cheetah), but we also need to account for integration with 
tools like puppet.    The question is how far do you go in supporting 
other CMS's, such as if someone wants to use cfengine (because they 
already have it) instead, or something like bcfg2.    Ultimately the 
other question is how much you integrate in a CMS without becoming just 
a GUI editor for a text file, as many of these are basically recipe based.

Thoughts welcome.


--Michael