[et-mgmt-tools] Cobbler Triggers

[Tim Verhoeven]

Hello,

Let me first try to explain what I would like to setup. I'm building a
central repo/installation server using Cobbler. We also (already) have
a central DHCP and DNS server (ISC dhcpd and bind). The idea is that I
let the Cobbler server generate pieces of configfile for these
services and then copy the files over to the DHCP and DNS server and
use them through includes so that I do not have to touch the main
configfiles.

For the DHCP part my idea was to let Cobbler to it's thing like it
does now (when manage_dhcp is set to 1). But it think there are 2
issues with this setup. First, there is no trigger for the sync
action, and that is (as far as I can see) the place where the
dhcp.conf file get created/updated by Cobbler.
Secondly, when manage_dhcp is set to 1 it will also try to restart
dhcpd. In my setup I don't need this since my trigger will do that on
the remote side.

IMHO there are 2 ways to make this work. First is to add another
option that tell Cobbler to create all the necessary configfiles but
to not try to start any daemon itself. And then also add a trigger on
the sync action (which would be a good idea anyway, I think that can
be used for other things too).
The second idea is to add "remote" functionality to Cobbler itself.
Meaning when the remote option is set Cobbler will scp files over to
another system and restart any daemons there using ssh. This last part
should be not that invasive using a set of well written functions for
this.

So what is the prefered option here ?

Then for the DNS part. With the triggers for add and delete system it
should not be that hard to write something that creates part of a
zonefile and copy that over to the DNS server, increments the serial
and reloads bind. But I've seen in the code that Cobbler already
generates something simular (although simpler) for dnsmasq. What is
the feeling to add bind type zonefiles output to Cobbler ? Then the
trigger only needs to copy it and reload bind.

Anyway, if someone else has working trigger scripts that he or she is
willing to share as examplecode, I would appreciate it.

Regards,
Tim


-- 
Tim Verhoeven - tim.verhoeven.be at gmail.com - 0479 / 88 11 83

Hoping the problem  magically goes away  by ignoring it is the
"microsoft approach to programming" and should never be allowed.
(Linus Torvalds)