[CentOS] Spacewalk or Puppet?

[Les Mikesell]

nate wrote:
> 
>> OK, but if I have to write the script, why wouldn't I just write the
>> script my way and automate it over ssh which already works instead of
>> learning some new language and having to install some new agent
>> everywhere to run it?
> 
> If your just interested in doing one thing then you wouldn't.. the
> thread seemed to dive into broader topics than one particular issue.

Yes, but if you have to manage the details anyway I'm having trouble 
seeing the value of an abstraction - and having to understand both the 
details and the abstraction.  Do the tools give you an easy way to 
reliably repeat someone else's detailed process without having to 
understand it?

>> It's next to impossible to get or set a duplex setting via snmp. And
>> non-trivial to figure out what switch port is connected to what device -
>> OpenNMS does a reasonable job but if you activate all of its checks it
>> can kill things that have full bgp routes.
> 
> LLDP is supposed to address that, or CDP if your Cisco, EDP if your
> Extreme etc. I haven't had the need to go to this level myself,
> though a former co-worker of mine who is a former amazonian said they
> used CDP all the time on their systems to detect what switch/port/etc
> their systems were on(5+ years ago, not sure what they do now)
> 
> http://openlldp.sourceforge.net/

I think scaling is the general topic here.  I don't scale well enough to 
deal with learning a new language/protocol/toolset for every single 
configuration setting - and especially with variations per vendor. But 
those are the real-world configuration problems.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com