It's too bad that your question sparked so much religious fervor "over there". For what it's worth, I don't think you can go wrong with any of those.
I've used both cfengine and Puppet over the years, and have met people who have been successful with Chef. What has worked for others in their specific environment may (or may not) work well for yours. That's what offers the excuse for the "one true way" arguments. Rule 16 and 36 apply: (http://thuktun.wordpress.com/toms-rules-for-happy-sysadmins-and-users/) I'd start with this list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_configuration_management_software ) and evaluate based on a few criteria: 1. Support for the way you manage your site today. Think about whether or not you have a CMDB or inventory system, or you want your CM tool to provide it. Think about what OSes you need to support: If you need Windows (and Mac, and UNIX) support your choices may be more limited. Think about the things you like about the way you manage now (and want to keep) and the things you want to change. See which tools are more like the way you want things to be in the future, not which ones exactly match what you're doing now. 2. If you think you may need to create extensions, are you comfortable using the needed programming/extension language? CFEngine is C. Puppet and Chef are Ruby. 3. Do you want to only manage the operating system and its control files, or do you want to manage applications, too? (Or vice versa.) 4. For which tools can you "find the answers in the back of the book?" Do any of the systems already have modules or mechanisms for (any) of your use cases? If so, build on those. 5. What's the (local) community? Are there people nearby who are using the systems? Can they provide local support? Can you get some help for the price of lunch, beer, or dinner :-) How's the online community? 6. What does the "vendor" support look like? Look at the mailing lists and bug trackers. Does the "vendor" (or community) seem responsive? Are there constant complaints that no one is providing (or accepting) patches? In other words, decide what criteria are important to you and your site, and evaluate the choices in light of your requirements, not mine, or anyone else's. I can't recommend automated config management enough. No matter which tool you choose,It will fundamentally change the way you look at system administration, and (after the painful startup) it will pay you back in better quality of life, for you and your user community. Good luck. And please share your experiences during and after you make the leap... --tep _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
