[Spacewalk-list] "bareMetalProvisioning" Wiki page

[Michael DeHaan]

Michael DeHaan wrote:
> Mike McCune wrote:
>> Michael DeHaan wrote:
>>> Michael DeHaan wrote:
>>>> I was reading over the Cobbler Wiki page and found 
>>>> https://fedorahosted.org/spacewalk/wiki/bareMetalBrainstorming
>>>>
>>>> I am not sure what the page is trying to discuss -- or why this is 
>>>> a new thing specific to metal as the things mentioned are no 
>>>> different in Spacewalk if doing reinstalls or guests.   If it's the 
>>>> general topic of "how do I manage diverse kickstart configurations 
>>>> that may span multiple sites" the answer is "templating", and "it 
>>>> varies greatly based on site". I can see where the wizard based 
>>>> kickstart-generator engine in Satellite would have some workflow 
>>>> problems with this, yes.   Cobbler is designed to solve all of 
>>>> those, so I think the question can be closed?
>>>>
>>>> --Michael
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Spacewalk-list mailing list
>>>> Spacewalk-list at redhat.com
>>>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list
>>>
>>> Anyone care to comment or shall I Wiki Garden this as closed?
>>>
>>> --Michael
>>>
>>
>> oops, this got missed by me.  Basically that page was a brainstorming 
>> session Dave and myself had over the workflow of doing PXE based 
>> installs.  We were curious about how customers setup and manage large 
>> scale (and small) PXE environments and if what we have built with 
>> spacewalk and cobbler will suit their needs.
>>
>> Basically a way to further refine future changes to spacewalk-cobbler 
>> to better meet the needs of our users beyond Spacewalk 0.4 and 0.5.  
>> We were contemplating doing some sort of survey of our Spacewalk, 
>> Satellite, Cobbler and other users on how they use (or don't use) our 
>> products to do their kickstarts.
>>
>> perhaps this wiki page and a survey isn't the right place for that 
>> kind of thing.  It might be worth doing this kind of research *after* 
>> Spacewalk 0.5 is out and Satellite 5.3 is available so more people 
>> have our product in front of them vs talking to people about things 
>> they may not have access too.
>>
>> Mike
>
>
> I think you're right, let them try to the tools and if that indicates 
> there is a workflow improvement to be made in Spacewalk you'll hear 
> about it.  I was looking over that and even the DHCP lab setup page 
> and on a whole I found them to be too complicated -- setting up those 
> things are pretty easy to do, and I tried to make appropriate 
> edits/comments.
>
> FWIW, there are some quite large (and small) setups using Cobbler, and 
> I don't see the Spacewalk-using-Cobbler workflow as conflicting with 
> that.
>
> Not to scare folks, but one recent mailing list post talked about 
> someone looking to have their setup up to 2 cobbler masters and 18 
> slave servers.  I don't think simple bare metal workflow is a user 
> concern -- people get it.    The interesting challenge I think we have 
> is finding ways to manage multiple geographies/datacenters (like the 
> above setup), with DHCP and DNS management turned on, and to do things 
> like Beaker can do with controlling multiple cobbler servers.    Of 
> course this is a good problem to have. 
> To go out on a tangent, recent discussion on Cobbler list about 
> supporting QMF might serve as a very nice way to do that kind of 
> communication, replacing rubygem-cobbler and Spacewalks cobbler 
> interface code with something a bit more multi-server aware.   I hope 
> to do some exploration in the next few weeks.
>
> If Spacewalk can just manage the masters, the slaves should be 
> manageable automatically by the cobbler master.  
> Anyhow, I really don't see workflow being a problem -- and if you do 
> want to discuss how people are doing baremetal, let me know.  It's 
> really a simpler thing than just reinstalls, so I can't see any new 
> workflow problems coming up -- but if they do, I think you'd hear 
> about them :)    The summary is that the workflow problems we really 
> want to discuss are the ones dealing with multiple geographies, the 
> workflow of how you deal with a single server spacewalk install is 
> pretty much solid, I think, but we'll hear what people say.
>
> --Michael
>

Related question to the multi-node thing, are there instructions on 
setting up Spacewalk in a HA environment somewhere?   I'd be interested 
to see how that is handled.

(Whether something like linux-HA's heartbeat+stonnith or something else)