[Freedombox-discuss] Chef and Puppet experts?

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On 11-09-15 at 05:59pm, José Manuel Canelas wrote:
> 
> 
> On 09/15/11 08:41, Philip Hands wrote:
> > On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:07:49 -0700, 
> > FreedomBox-Discuss.NeoPhyte_Rep at OrdinaryAmerican.net wrote: ...
> >>> Using any of Puppet/Chef/cfengine to achieve the same effect is 
> >>> effectively just an attempt to side-step the edict against one 
> >>> package modifying the conffiles of another (which would be another 
> >>> way of doing this) -- while that edict is sometimes inconvenient, 
> >>> it's there for good reason so one should be very cautious before 
> >>> ignoring it.
> 
> [snip]
> > Section 3, paragraph 3, of this:
> > 
> >   http://release.debian.org/squeeze/rc_policy.txt
> > 
> > 	Packages must not modify other packages' configuration files 
> > 	except by an agreed upon APIs (eg, a /usr/sbin/update-foo 
> > 	command).
> > 
> > rc_policy.txt is the list of things that would have justified a 
> > release critical bug in the latest stable release -- I failed to 
> > find it in the general policy docs, but note that the same thing is 
> > also mentioned here:
> > 
> >     http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/upgrading-checklist.txt
> > 
> >           * updated section about `Configuration files': packages 
> >           may not touch other packages' configuration files
> > 
> > in 1997.  Perhaps it's so fundamental that it doesn't need to be 
> > written down in policy -- I suppose it's just a special case of the 
> > fact that packages shouldn't tread on other package's files.
> 
> Except that this is not the case. With configuration management tools 
> (puppet, cfengine, chef, there are more), it is not the package that 
> is treading on other packages files, it is the user (or sysadmin) that 
> is changing those files. The tool only applies the rules that the user 
> tells it to.

You are right that above are *packaging* rules.

CFengine, Puppet, Chef, FAI, etc. are excellent helper tools for system 
administration.

An essential goal of FreedomBox, however, is to be dead easy to use.  
Which in my experience means avoid the system administrator role!


You may disagree with me.  Others do - including the main developer of 
Skolelinux, Petter Reinholdtsen.  Watch between 31:20 and 33:31 of this: 
http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2011/debconf11/low/779_Debian-Edu_Current_Status_and_Development_Ideas_for_the_next_Decade.ogv

What we talk about there is Debian bug#311188 which Petter disagrees 
with me is a violation of Debian policy, but agrees is causing 
Skolelinux to not be automatically upgradeable from one stable release 
to the next.


I do not want to tell our users that the way to upgrade to a newer 
version of FreedomBox is to flash is!



 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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