From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 450751381F3 for ; Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:36:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 93F33E0C11; Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:35:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-we0-f170.google.com (mail-we0-f170.google.com [74.125.82.170]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 76234E0B90 for ; Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:35:53 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-we0-f170.google.com with SMTP id w62so6237698wes.15 for ; Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:35:52 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=xF1QOphvsplVgmUv89ZCWWNiEr1iH3APBifCcczg8xk=; b=M6StNCf0v1zDArmCJ69ybUjUJJQngsR0jzEI0cc7N9IQ2ll0enjz9JT6rhj2rQdK10 kLtdYraww35FsazcWnQ8utWmKO0LKuXVV00nYBY2yLgpm30w2DtVOtIsCitVBrl2BPtU vpkJ3NMwd7budE92vHExiS7kZg8ZyziuR7z7uEgzA/YPqPkjHtpOdG8Bv5UPm2L+BPdb o1mlGTB2wssjk2dsjjmxInok4iYVHwJjCmLfUaianuzAUnR++wc8fEecqmzo5PdkEf+m HXatZA0slyq0kPvRYWU4zelR3M/cB4qv0+AZ09jKtM5n6Jb09qd4VyELS9YNFMpT5A4J zpfw== X-Received: by 10.180.90.19 with SMTP id bs19mr15154188wib.15.1380569752111; Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:35:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [172.20.0.40] (196-210-102-121.dynamic.isadsl.co.za. [196.210.102.121]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id ey2sm4054262wib.5.1969.12.31.16.00.00 (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:35:51 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <5249D186.8050808@gmail.com> Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 21:31:18 +0200 From: Alan McKinnon User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.0 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Managing multiple systems with identical hardware References: <524358B0.1060000@gmail.com> <52449C1A.5000306@gmail.com> <5245E03A.2020605@gmail.com> <52489438.3090405@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 8a1d9d4d-b8fa-466c-a68c-488ec1e86e9a X-Archives-Hash: 4c8119377233bae5c5793b79291a78b6 On 30/09/2013 19:31, Grant wrote: >>> Keeping all of the laptops 100% identical as far as hardware is >>> central to this plan. I know I'm setting myself up for big problems >>> otherwise. >>> >>> I'm hoping I can emerge every package on my laptop that every other >>> laptop needs. That way I can fix any build problems and update any >>> config files right on my own system. Then I would push config file >>> differences to all of the other laptops. Then each laptop could >>> emerge its own stuff unattended. >> >> I see what you desire now - essentially you want to clone your laptop >> (or big chunks of it) over to your other workstations. > > That sounds about right. > >> To get a feel for how it works, visit puppet's web site and download >> some of the test appliances they have there and run them in vm software. >> Set up a server and a few clients, and start experimenting in that >> sandbox. You'll quickly get a feel for how it all hangs together (it's >> hard to describe in text how puppet gets the job done, so much easier to >> do it for real and watch the results) > > Puppet seems like overkill for what I need. I think all I really need > is something to manage config file differences and user accounts. At > this point I'm thinking I shouldn't push packages themselves, but > portage config files and then let each laptop emerge unattended based > on those portage configs. I'm going to bring this to the 'salt' > mailing list to see if it might be a good fit. It seems like a much > lighter weight application. Two general points I can add: 1. Sharing config files turns out to be really hard. By far the easiest way is to just share /etc but that is an all or nothing approach, and you just need one file to be different to break it. Like /etc/hostname You *could* create a "share" directory inside /etc and symlink common files in there, but that gets very tedious quickly. Rather go for a centralized repo solution that pushes configs out, you must just find the one that's right for you. 2. Binary packages are almost perfect for your needs IMHO, running emerge gets very tedious quickly, and your spec is that all workstations have the same USE. You'd be amazed how much time you save by doing this: emerge -b on your laptop and share your /var/packages emerge -K on the workstations when your laptop is on the network step 2 goes amazingly quickly - eyeball the list to be emerged, they should all be purple, press enter. About a minute or two per workstation, as opposed to however many hours the build took. 3. (OK, three points). Share your portage tree over the network. No point in syncing multiple times when you actually just need to do it once. > > I'm soaking up a lot of your time (again). I'll return with any real > Gentoo questions I run into and to run down the final plan before I > execute it. Thanks so much for your help. Not sure what I'd do > without you. :) I'm sure Neil would step in if I'm hit by a bus He'd say the same things, and use about 1/4 of the words it takes me ;-) -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckinnon@gmail.com