[CentOS] package 'synchronization' for multiple systems

Thu Feb 7 19:06:19 UTC 2008
James A. Peltier <jpeltier at cs.sfu.ca>

Matt Hyclak wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 07, 2008 at 07:45:09PM +0100, Lorenzo Quatrini enlightened us:
>> Michael Semcheski ha scritto:
>>> On Feb 7, 2008 1:14 PM, Tim Alberts <talberts at msiscales.com> wrote:
>>>> I'm setting up multiple systems and ideally I want the same package
>>>> configuration on all of them.  So I'm going through yum and rpm queries
>>>> manually to try and get this done.  There must be a better way.  Is
>>>> there a way to use yum or rpm to configure multiple systems with the
>>>> same packages?
>>> What I've done (and I'm on the lookout for a better way) is to right a
>>> script that uses ssh to run yum on each machine.
>>>
>>> If there is a way to query yum for the list of installed packages,
>>> that might suffice.  Query each computer for the list of installed
>>> packages, get the union of those lists, and install that on each
>>> machine.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with yum to know if this is 
>>> possible.
>>>
>>> Mike
>> I guess the best way of doing that is via kickstart
>>
>> I was thinking about yum... you could do
>>
>> yum list installed | tail -n +4 | awk '{ print $1 }'
>>
>> but still there is some work to do.
>> Maybe "rpm -qa" is a better way to have the list, but still, if you have to 
>> install multiple systems at once, I guess that kickstarting is the best way.
>>
> 
> I agree, for install Kickstart is the way to go.
> 
> Post-installation, you can use configuration management tools such as puppet
> or cfengine to ensure (sets of) packages are installed/not installed as
> necessary.
> 
> Matt
> 

During install kickstart is the way to go.  However, after installation 
it's the admins personal preference.

I personally just use a series of shell scripts that perform rpm queries 
and if statements in an external shell file.  If the package is already 
installed it skips it, if not it installs it, traps errors on failures, 
etc.  This has worked quite well for me.  This tied together with 
ClusterSSH allows me to maintain some 500 workstations quite easily from 
the comfort of my Herman Miller Aeron chair.

-- 
James A. Peltier
Technical Director, RHCE
SCIRF | GrUVi @ Simon Fraser University - Burnaby Campus
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