[colug-432] Setting Up New Servers

[Steve VanSlyck]

its a digitalocean vps

On April 22, 2015 1:50:14 PM EDT, Rick Troth <rmt at casita.net> wrote:
>On 04/16/2015 10:48 AM, Steve VanSlyck wrote:
>> Is there anyone here who has ever set up more than two servers? I am
>> curious about what you may have thought of or done in terms of
>> automating the process.
>
>I have to ask: virtual or physical?
>
>Great responses enumerating some of the "sanity tools" available to us
>these days.
>
>If things are virtual, take advantage of it. There are things you can
>do
>in that space that you cannot do with discrete boxes.
>
>
>> For example getting the sudoers file the way you want it... Adding
>your
>> public key... Configuring your bashrc file... You know, all the
>little
>> things you do to make the server yours. Not necessarily software
>> installation although that could be done also.
>
>When the servers are virtual, I like to install once, tweak it, then
>clone. (Maybe install twice to be fully aware of what actually got
>installed.) The master copy will have Ansible or Puppet or whichever
>you
>like. Naturally the master will have your SSH keys and /etc/sudoers and
>the rest.
>
>But you can do better.
>In virtualization, cloning is all the rage, but by itself only gives
>you
>... well ... just clones. You can do better by sharing filesystems.
>
>I've made (bad) mistakes in the past by not conveying the full story.
>I've been part of cumbersome implementations.
>But shared filesystems is a Good Idea.
>I have several systems, on different HW architectures, with shared op
>sys. The OS is R/O and each "client" has its own root with its own /etc
>and /var. But the rest is maintained in one place. Works. Skipping the
>details unless someone cares.
>
>And then there's the containers game. (Docker being the hottest player
>lately.) Depending on what you're doing, that may be better still.
>
>
>> I am looking for something that will make the job a little easier to
>do
>> than simply writing down on a piece of paper every single thing I do
>to
>> configure the box and then following my notes for the next server I
>set
>> up.
>
>Low tech works. Don't shred the idea of using paper for some things.
>
>This is where scripting comes in. Better than paper for the sake of
>reproducibility. (As noted, doesn't scale too well, but may be a good
>starting point.)
>
>
>> Maybe there is a method of running some sort of diff between the two
>> servers that would focus only on the kinds of things a server admin
>> would do the first day (assuming he could remember it all, and not
>> necessarily every single difference between every single file, which
>> would of course be overwhelming.
>
>Harder to do with physically discrete machines. So ... back to that
>question: phys or virt? Either way, maybe run checksums against the
>files you're interested in and then 'diff' the output.
>
>-- R; <><
>
>
>
>
>
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