Dear Mark,
...
So, what I am looking for really is feedback on what people are using in the wild on multiple machines, and bonus points for people who only use tools and mechanisms already built into the CentOS [base] repo.
We are using Spacewalk to manage /etc/sysconfig/iptables files. The files are version controlled with the integrated config management tool. As SW does not (yet) support depended command execution, we are using remote command execution through osad to reload iptables, afterwards.
<snip> So, what version is Spacewalk up to? When I installed it this past spring, it was version 0.4, and I upgraded to 0.5, which had just been released, the week before my contract ended the end of April.
*I* would *never* put something that was under 1.0 (actually, 1.0.1) into production.
0.6 is quite okay, but we are using a standalone Oracle instead of XE.
Besides that you can always buy a Satellite Server if you need a proven enterprise management system. We are using both products in our scenario.
Best Regards Marcus