On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote: > On 5/10/2010 12:37 PM, Ross Walker wrote: >> >>> I think it is unfortunate how difficult it is to back up a working linux >>> machine and restore it onto different hardware, given that the system >>> really is very hardware independent. But, detecting the hardware and >>> mapping it to device drivers seems to be a black art hidden inside of >>> anaconda and then the local hardware related settings are fairly >>> hopelessly intertwined with application and user preferences in your >>> backup copies. I always thought that this would be a common enough >>> problem that some distribution would address it, but so far it hasn't >>> happened. >> >> That's why God invented the systems administrator! > > Well, yeah - I suppose you could say the design is good for the job > security of sysadmins and for requiring support subscriptions from the > distribution vendors, but it's something that the computer really should > be able to handle by itself just like it does during the initial install. Computers are dumb, and if we give too much power to the OS vendors they'll enslave us. >> Here I use kickstart scripts for baseline server types that perform >> all the basic configurations on install. > > Have you totaled up the hours you've spend on these tasks that would be > unnecessary in a better-designed system? And even if that sort-of makes > sense for servers that have a basic "type", what about ones that have > application developers as users and end up accumulating all kinds of > cruft that you don't know about? After the initial time to research and setup the system the time to maintain and extend was minimal, and these were setup a long, long, long time ago (circa Windows 2000), use rsync or DFSR to replicate the config to other deployment servers in remote offices. I definitely recommend it. Just need to setup clear policies with the developers, save your work here and it will be recoverable, save your work there and you are SoL. >> If I am setting up an ESXi infrastructure the first thing I would do >> is setup a Cobbler server and a Windows deployment server (maybe a >> Solaris Jump Start server) and integrate it with the VMware vCenter >> templates. Then it's all point-n-click server deployment from there. > > Don't forget that you can use ESXi for free, but not vCenter. But, > there's really no problem in just copying/cloning VMware images around - > you don't have to go through any extra contortions to be able to > reproduce them (with variations for every OS), you just need to save a > baseline copy before adding specialized applications. Sure, I just mentioned vCenter as I use it here, but as in the email to John, it could easily be scripted from a VM. No need to clone or image either, I can have a server deployed over the network in much quicker time then if I imaged it and a whole lot easier to maintian long-term then a clone. -Ross