Configuration management: automating and rationalizing server setup with CFEngine 3 (Open World Forum 2011)
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This document discusses configuration management and CFEngine 3. It begins with an introduction to configuration management principles like reproducibility, industrialization, and automation. It then discusses the main configuration management tools including CFEngine 3, Puppet, and Chef. The document focuses on CFEngine 3, describing its features like being lightweight, scalable, and adapted to heterogeneous environments. It concludes with instructions on installing and getting started with CFEngine 3, including examples of using it to install and configure servers.
Configuration management: automating and rationalizing server setup with CFEngine 3 (Open World Forum 2011)
- 1. 24/09/2011 Configuration Management Automating and rationalizing server setup with CFEngine 3 Jonathan Clarke <jcl@normation.com>
- 2. About the speaker Jonathan Clarke → CTO → Sysadmin background Startup created in 2010 Infrastructure management Based in Paris FLOSS contributor: Configuration management: CFEngine CFEngine (partner) Others (OpenLDAP, LSC, FusionInventory...) Rudder (creator)
- 3. Introduction 1. CREATE 2. SETUP 3. USE 4. THROW AWAY Cloud Computing
- 4. Introduction 1. CREATE 2. SETUP 3. USE 4. THROW AWAY Cloud Computing → APIs and tools are available
- 5. Introduction 1. CREATE 2. SETUP 3. USE 4. THROW AWAY Cloud Computing Three approaches: 1. Manually 2. Imaging 3. Configuration tool
- 6. Agenda 1) Configuration Management principles 2) Configuration Management tools 3) About CFEngine 3 4) Getting started
- 7. Configuration Management Principles through examples...
- 8. A server crashed. Install a new one, people can't work without it! OK, it'll be done in about two days... Why configuration management? There's a new critical security patch we must deploy on all our servers! Get it out quickly! Right, I'll put the whole team on it.
- 9. Reproducibility Industrialization Automation Why configuration management?
- 10. How do we setup service X? Ask Jim, he's the expert on that. But he left the company... Why configuration management? Huh, this server has been logging errors for a few weeks. Oh? I think Michael changed something on it recently... He'll tell you what it was. Damn, he's on vacation!
- 11. Documentation History Building-up knowledge Why configuration management?
- 12. An intruder just stole our data using a vulnerability in a module we don't need... I thought the project specification ensured that we disabled that? Er, it did, but we enabled it to solve a problem and forgot to disable it afterwards... sorry... Why configuration management?
- 13. Why configuration management? Continuous vigilance Automatic repairs Alerts
- 14. I don't understand how this server is setup. It doesn't match our best-practices. Oh, that's a legacy server... Why configuration management? Give me details on our current security policy. Well, it's a collection of little things, here and there... Ah... Well, OK. Tell me: is it fully applied on all our critical servers? Er...
- 15. Why configuration management? Rationalization Normalization Control
- 16. Reproducibility Industrialization Documentation History Automation Building-up knowledge Configuration management benefits Continuous Rationalization vigilance Automatic repairs Alerts Normalization Control
- 17. Configuration Management The tools
- 18. Main tools available CFEngine 3 Puppet Chef
- 19. Main tools available: history Relative origins of CFEngine, Puppet and Chef Source: http://verticalsysadmin.com/blog/uncategorized/relative-origins-o f-cfengine-chef-and-puppet
- 20. The tools: similarities CFEngine 3 Puppet Chef Common origins Designed specifically Text-based / CLI for configuration interface management Client-server model (sometimes optional) Open Source
- 21. The tools: some differences CFEngine 3 Puppet Chef C Ruby Ruby Language GPL Apache Apache (ex-GPL) License Yes Preliminary Partial Windows support
- 22. A bit about CFEngine 3...
- 23. CFEngine 3: Features Multi platform Windows support Two versions: 1. Community (open source) Runs in Cygwin 2. Nova (commercial) ● Native Windows service
- 24. CFEngine 3: Features Multi-OS Multi-distribution Adapted to Make it ”transparent” (forget heterogeneous about the complexity) environments Existing standard library handling the differences between each OS and distribution
- 25. CFEngine 3: Features Lightweight, non-intrusive Non-intrusive Daemon consumption on managed hosts Only two dependencies: - BerkeleyDB - OpenSSL
- 26. CFEngine 3: Features Evolution of CPU utilization for an increasing number of managed hosts Highly scalable From 25 to 400 clients (x16) CPU utilization increases by 1.16% Notes: • Each host runs CFEngine every 5 minutes • Configuration tested sets up Apache web server • Tests and monitoring using AWS
- 27. CFEngine 3: Features Multi platform Adapted to Lightweight, non-intrusive heterogeneous environments Autonomous Fault-tolerant Highly scalable Progressive roll-out
- 28. Getting started with CFEngine 3
- 29. CFEngine 3: Installing Install from sources: http://www.cfengine.com/source_code Prebuilt packages: Debian / SuSE / Fedora / RHEL / Ubuntu Requires free signup https://cfengine.com/inside/myspace
- 30. CFEngine 3: Client-Server Using a server is optional! Get started by running standalone CFEngine's server daemon is cf-serverd Dedicated protocol: TCP port 5308 Requires SSL key exchange
- 31. CFEngine 3: Configuration Minimal configuration: body common control { bundlesequence => { "HelloWorld" }; } Syntax notes bundle agent HelloWorld Whitespace doesn't count { Comments follow # # This will output "Hello World!" commands: "/bin/echo Hello World!"; } Structure notes ● Structures are created using { } ● Structures are bundles or bodies
- 32. CFEngine 3: Configuration Promise types: Promise types Promise types (all versions) (commercial versions) files environments packages services processes databases commands storage interfaces (for future use) Special types Special types (all versions) (commercial versions) vars outputs classes methods reports
- 33. CFEngine 3: Examples Install and update the LAMP stack bundle agent lamp { vars: "packages" slist => { "httpd", "php5", "mysql" }; packages: "${packages}" package_method => generic, package_method => "addupdate"; }
- 34. CFEngine 3: Examples Install Apache with distribution variations packages: debian:: "apache2" package_policy => "add", package_method => apt; centos|redhat:: "httpd" package_policy => "add", package_method => yum;
- 35. 24/09/2011 Thanks for participating! Stay in touch... Jonathan Clarke Email: jcl@normation.com Twitter: jooooooon42