Re: [gentoo-server] Best practices in managing large server groups

[Brian Kroth <bpkroth@wisc.edu>]

> Back to the original question.  How do I run a number of gentoo boxes
> without gcc (or a portage tree)?
> 
> 
> -Ronan

Sorry for the late post, I'm still catching up on email.

I haven't looked into removing gcc (but your comments intrigue me).  As 
for no portage tree, all of my machines auto-NFS mount it from a local 
build host that also holds the binary packages.  The NFS mount is set 
read-only so the novice doesn't get to emerge on the machine (yes it's 
easily subverted).  I've found this helps with stability since then 
everything must go through the same build server and I have better 
guarantees about what is actually on the individual machines.  There are 
a couple of different images to take care of the different roles each of 
those servers take on (web server, database server, mail server, etc.).

I've also been looking into PXE booting so I only need to update a 
single image.  To be honest I'm not quite ready for this yet, but it 
might be another option for you.

Brian
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