[colug-432] Documenting System Installation, Configuration, and Changes

[Chris Clonch]

On 05/31/2012 07:39 PM, Neal Dias wrote:

> To do this successfully requires a shift in how most people
> admin their systems.

Underscore this!

> You would manage changes to the system by
> checking things in/out of SVN where they are picked up and propagated
> out to the target system, you generally would not use the CLI for
> directly manipulating the system.

I laid out exactly as you describe using Subversion, Trac, and Cfengine.
 But it never worked as I couldn't change the other admins to work
purely from their desktops through Subversion.  It all breaks the moment
someone edits a file locally and then the CM comes along and reverts it
back..

The hard part is knowing when to implement as it can be quite a large
undertaking.  Implementation needs to happen when the number of systems
is still relatively small.  At somepoint the admins/servers ratio shifts
where it becomes too costly. Prior to that point, it seems there isn't
enough justification for such a system and becomes hard to get buy in.
I believe this conundrum is discussed in the Cfengine book Mark Burgess
wrote for USENIX.


-Chris