On Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:40:56 -0800 Paul Lathrop wrote: > > Arnau, Hi Paul, > Please don't be offended by my response, as you requested we not be > offended by your post.
I won't, don't worry. I hope you or other developers are not angry with me... I'm just explaining my experience with this software. But, as I will comment later, I've been really happy with it till now, that I'm a little disappointed (but I'll continue working cause I think it has to work fine, many people in list say so). > I've watched a lot of your posts to the list, and the behavior I'm > observing is when you run into errors, you don't seem to step back and > try to take the time to understand them. Instead, it appears you do > the following: > > 1) Immediately post a message to the list. > 2) Freak out because nobody responded within 5 minutes. > 3) Flail around trying things, seemingly at random, until something > *seems* to work because it makes the specific error change/go away. > 4) Repeat. Yep, could be, in part ;-). I can ensure you that I've wasted a lot of time trying to understand confs and trying to understand problems. But, I accept that I go to list too quick, and I post many things. (I'm used to, cause maybe someone sees something that I don't, and a little comment gives me the answer... ) Random? don't believe it, I always look for docs or previous post in list... As I said before, _seems_ that what I find in docs and the behave I get is not always the same. But Paul, I accept that my behave could be paranoid sometimes... > So, if I were to offer you some ideas for how to proceed, they would > be: > > 1) Set all the stuff you've made to this point aside. Keep it around > to use as reference. > 3) Pick 3 machines to use as an environment for learning puppet. > 4) Ensure that Puppet is *completely* removed from these machines. It > would be optimal if they were totally clean machines. > * Puppet is still pre-1.0 software. The upgrade path hasn't been > perfectly clean and, to complicate things, packaging has been fairly > inconsistent. There are some artifacts that are in older versions > which will utterly break newer versions in disorienting ways. > 5) Install the latest stable version of Puppet (0.24.7 as I write). > Choose one machine to act as puppetmaster, and (if it is a separate > package for your environment) install puppetmaster on that machine. > 6) Pick one service. Create a module for it. > 7) When you encounter a problem, stop. Walk away entirely for ten > minutes. Come back to it and see if you can figure out what the root > cause of the problem is. Some basic troubleshooting steps for Puppet: > * Re-start your puppetmaster and watch the logs. Often a syntax > error in your manifests will cause the puppetmaster to ignore them and > use the old cached configurations. When you restart, if you are > watching the logs, you'll catch the syntax error and you can fix it. > * Utilize --debug --no-daemonize on both client and server -- this > is one of your biggest complaints, and it is entirely caused by having > used old versions and leaving old broken config files around. You > should not have a 'puppetd.conf' or a 'puppetmasterd.conf', you should > be using 'puppet.conf' > * Try out --parse-only > * Comment out the sections of your manifest that you added since > things ran perfectly. Uncomment one resource at a time. > > I think if you step back and start from a reasonably clean slate you > will have a more positive experience. Paul, that's exactly what I've done. I can comment point by point all your advices (or I could show you my svn logs). I've been working with puppet for two or three months, building module by module until I got a great install -> config method. It worked really fine and I was really on love with puppet: easy and clean system. Maybe you won't believe me, but I have had 10 hosts running under puppet perfectly for more than a month ! And I've been really happy with puppet! So I believe in it. but how? with no mongrel, with separate install time, with no need to use a big debug (as you say, running debug on clients always point out syntax errors, I also have pre-commit hook that does the job for me), with no updates (i started the pre-prod with 0.24.7 version), and mainly, with few nodes... (as you can imagine, I cannot reinstall 40 nodes every day, so I cannot face big problems every day). I found many problems at one time, many surprise for what I was preparing for real production... But no problem, I'll follow them again, I'll look for "the error" going from svn revision to revision (I started with web's example :-)), and I'll com back with the error (I suppose you would like to see it :-) ). Paul, I really appreciate you reply, very polite and instructive. And again, sorry if you or some other dev feel offended, it's not my intention, and maybe my English is not as good as I'd like. > Regards, > Paul Lathrop Cheers, Arnau --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Users" group. To post to this group, send email to puppet-users@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to puppet-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
