Puppet users - Mar 2009 - Experiences with RHN Satellite?

This is slightly off topic, and may just be tossing red meat to y''all,
but here goes:

My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a web UI wrapped
around a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration
management system.  I''m of the opinion that our time and money would
be better spent getting off of RHN for package distribution, setting
up our own Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet, and
bringing in Luke Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet installation to
up to snuff.  FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that need to be
managed, and we may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just
for the system subscriptions ($200 each).

Does anyone here have recent experience with RHN Satellite, and care
to comment on its usefulness and functionality?   Or on its
shortcoming and pitfalls?  My Google searches aren''t turning up any
useful reviews.  I''d like to be in a position to ask some semi-
informed questions.

ALSO: it would be great if there''s anyone in the Washington DC area
that could come in to give a pitch for Puppet.  I did some work with
Puppet at my last job (up until three months ago), and I''ve been a
proponent of it my current gig, but my experience isn''t really deep
enough to make the case.

Thanks for any opinions you can provide.

Cheers,

Peter
--
Peter Burkholder
pburkholder@pobox.com

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

PeterBurkholder <pburkholder@gmail.com> writes:
> My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
> Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a web UI wrapped
around
> a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration management
> system.  I''m of the opinion that our time and money would be
better
> spent getting off of RHN for package distribution, setting up our own
> Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet, and bringing in Luke
> Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet installation to up to snuff.
> FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that need to be managed,
and we
> may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just for the system
> subscriptions ($200 each).
After spending a completely unproductive six months trying to get the
Satellite to work for us, we did pretty much exactly what you said above
and had considerably more success.  In our experience, the Satellite is
buggy, limited, and opaque, and basically unsupported by Red Hat in any
meaningful way.  (I think the icing on that cake was when the Red Hat
on-site engineer proved incapable of installing his own product.)

I do, however, know other people who have had considerably better luck
with it and swear by it.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

I would argue that a one time effort to get proper repo locally, would be
much more efficient than using a tool like RHN Satellite.
this way you control the content of your repository.
additionally, I would really recommend against having multiple tools
managing your systems.

my 2c
Ohad

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:39 AM, PeterBurkholder
<pburkholder@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> This is slightly off topic, and may just be tossing red meat to
y''all,
> but here goes:
>
> My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
> Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a web UI wrapped
> around a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration
> management system.  I''m of the opinion that our time and money
would
> be better spent getting off of RHN for package distribution, setting
> up our own Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet, and
> bringing in Luke Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet installation to
> up to snuff.  FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that need to
be
> managed, and we may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just
> for the system subscriptions ($200 each).
>
> Does anyone here have recent experience with RHN Satellite, and care
> to comment on its usefulness and functionality?   Or on its
> shortcoming and pitfalls?  My Google searches aren''t turning up
any
> useful reviews.  I''d like to be in a position to ask some semi-
> informed questions.
>
> ALSO: it would be great if there''s anyone in the Washington DC
area
> that could come in to give a pitch for Puppet.  I did some work with
> Puppet at my last job (up until three months ago), and I''ve been a
> proponent of it my current gig, but my experience isn''t really
deep
> enough to make the case.
>
> Thanks for any opinions you can provide.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter
> --
> Peter Burkholder
> pburkholder@pobox.com
>
> >
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

PAIN.

PAIN.

PAIN.

That''s my experience with RHN Satellite server.

PAIN.

On Mar 8, 2009, at 10:37 PM, Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> PeterBurkholder <pburkholder@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
>> Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a web UI
wrapped
>> around
>> a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration management
>> system.  I''m of the opinion that our time and money would be
better
>> spent getting off of RHN for package distribution, setting up our own
>> Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet, and bringing in  
>> Luke
>> Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet installation to up to snuff.
>> FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that need to be
managed,
>> and we
>> may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just for the system
>> subscriptions ($200 each).
>
> After spending a completely unproductive six months trying to get the
> Satellite to work for us, we did pretty much exactly what you said  
> above
> and had considerably more success.  In our experience, the Satellite  
> is
> buggy, limited, and opaque, and basically unsupported by Red Hat in  
> any
> meaningful way.  (I think the icing on that cake was when the Red Hat
> on-site engineer proved incapable of installing his own product.)
>
> I do, however, know other people who have had considerably better luck
> with it and swear by it.
>
> -- 
> Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)            
<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
> >
>
> >
--
Michael T. Halligan
http://www.datacenterjunkie.com/	


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

I''ve used it somewhat and it''s great when it works, painful
when it
doesn''t (re: PAIN), but it''s sort of beastly for only 50 boxes
IMO.

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

From my fairly limited experience there is some functionality in Satellite
servers that takes it beyond local repositories in that you can group hosts
into channels (dev, test, prod etc) and apply changes specific to the
channel
From the satellite server you can also fire back commands to a host or
groups of hosts which is useful. The RedHat chap will also probably tell you
about the ability to perform automated installs  from the Satellite server
instead of kickstart. I''ve not come across anywhere that''s
using this
feature though. In short, I think a combination of kickstart, cobbler,  yum
repos and puppet should be just as manageable

Paul



2009/3/9 Joe McDonagh <joseph.e.mcdonagh@gmail.com>
>
> I''ve used it somewhat and it''s great when it works,
painful when it
> doesn''t (re: PAIN), but it''s sort of beastly for only 50
boxes IMO.
>
> >
>

-- 
Paul Matthews
----------------------------------------------------------------------

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

PeterBurkholder <pburkholder@gmail.com> writes:
> FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that need to be
> managed, and we may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just
> for the system subscriptions ($200 each).
Note that the Satellite server code has been open sourced so I''m not
sure why they still charge so much for it.  
> Does anyone here have recent experience with RHN Satellite, and care
> to comment on its usefulness and functionality?   
We use it here on RHEL systems but I haven''t had direct experience
with it for years as I''ve long ago moved all my machines to Debian.
So, I can''t rightly comment on its "useabilty".

I can say we initially got into it (and now some factions pushing
CFengine) as we need to increase the apparent centralized control of
our systems in the eyes of our funding agency.  I''ve been using Puppet
to that end for a couple of years and think is does a fine job.

However RHEN and Puppet are partially orthogonal.  As you say, RHEN
doesn''t do config management so well and, of course, Puppet shines
here.  OTOH, Puppet is not so well[1] purposed for assuring systems
are up-to-date and producing reports to prove this so I think systems
like RHEN (if not maybe RHEN itself) still have a place in a Puppet
run shop.


-Brett.

[1] Please, please correct me if I''m wrong!

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>
wrote:
>
> PeterBurkholder <pburkholder@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
>> Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a web UI
wrapped around
>> a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration management
>> system.  I''m of the opinion that our time and money would be
better
>> spent getting off of RHN for package distribution, setting up our own
>> Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet, and bringing in Luke
>> Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet installation to up to snuff.
>> FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that need to be
managed, and we
>> may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just for the system
>> subscriptions ($200 each).
>
> After spending a completely unproductive six months trying to get the
> Satellite to work for us, we did pretty much exactly what you said above
> and had considerably more success.  In our experience, the Satellite is
> buggy, limited, and opaque, and basically unsupported by Red Hat in any
> meaningful way.  (I think the icing on that cake was when the Red Hat
> on-site engineer proved incapable of installing his own product.)
All I can say is that I have had a 180 degree different viewpoint on
it.. but this isn''t the list to go over that. The configuration
management system is not is strong point though. I would go with
puppet in it instead.

> I do, however, know other people who have had considerably better luck
> with it and swear by it.
>
> --
> Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)            
<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
>
> >
>


-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Did a POC of it at my current company.  I''ve also had the RedHat
Enterprise Deployment and Virtualization class.

This product was originally envisioned began development before RedHat
even had an IPO.  The reason I mention this is that the mindset around
systems management at that time is what you''re getting with this
product. Which means it was designed for management types to be able
to say that everything is up to date and secure all the time.  I don''t
think they ever really fleshed it out as a systems management platform
in the first place.

I have also seen RedHat Sales Techs that couldn''t get the product
installed and required my assistance to get it running.

The process of adding your own content to Satellite is one of the most
convoluted and time-intensive that I''ve seen. If you wish to add your
own packages, you must GPG all the packages and then find some way to
distribute your keys, which Satellite cannot do for you (this is
because the only way that would work through Satellite is if you
packaged your gpg key and had a post script to run the rpm --import,
but you can''t do that because all your packages must be signed and
can''t be installed if your gpg key hasn''t already been
imported.

The program claims support for Solaris, but it is woefully inadequate
in a multitude of ways (esp. now with zones and containers)

It was recently open-sourced, but they charge for the working version
because it is completely dependent on Oracle to run and the license is
for the embedded Oracle database that comes with it.  I haven''t seen
any progress making Satellite work on another RDBMS yet.

The monitoring portion of the product is a joke and completely an
afterthought.  It severely lacks any configurability or extensibility.

The licensing scheme is insane.  You need an "entitlement" to track
the box and manage packages. You need another to do automated
installs, and another to do monitoring.  All of these are PER MACHINE.

When I asked about scalability, I was told there were Satellite Proxy
servers, but they were really only to span physical locations, not
really to distribute load.  When I asked if the product could be built
out in such a way as to manage 10K+ machines, they told me we should
pay them to maintain such a system for them.

Even their instructors have been known to make veiled references to
the poor conception and implementation of the product.

I was told there would be some major changes in a newer version, but I
believe we used 5.? in the class I took a little over a year ago.  I''m
guessing the major changes they were talking about were making it open
source.

On Mar 9, 11:50 am, Stephen John Smoogen <smo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu>
wrote:
>
> > PeterBurkholder <pburkhol...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >> My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
> >> Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a web UI
wrapped around
> >> a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration management
> >> system.  I''m of the opinion that our time and money would
be better
> >> spent getting off of RHN for package distribution, setting up our
own
> >> Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet, and bringing in
Luke
> >> Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet installation to up to snuff.
> >> FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that need to be
managed, and we
> >> may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just for the system
> >> subscriptions ($200 each).
>
> > After spending a completely unproductive six months trying to get the
> > Satellite to work for us, we did pretty much exactly what you said
above
> > and had considerably more success.  In our experience, the Satellite
is
> > buggy, limited, and opaque, and basically unsupported by Red Hat in
any
> > meaningful way.  (I think the icing on that cake was when the Red Hat
> > on-site engineer proved incapable of installing his own product.)
>
> All I can say is that I have had a 180 degree different viewpoint on
> it.. but this isn''t the list to go over that. The configuration
> management system is not is strong point though. I would go with
> puppet in it instead.
>
> > I do, however, know other people who have had considerably better luck
> > with it and swear by it.
>
> > --
> > Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)            
<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
>
> --
> Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
> How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
> in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Hi,

Thanks to the seven of you who took the time and energy to reply.
It''s been very helpful in preparing for the meeting with Red Hat
tomorrow.  The key unanswered question was posed by Brett, and I was
of the impression that one could use Puppet for assuring that all
managed packages are the latest available, or at least of a certain
revision.  Can it report on that too?
>
> However RHEN and Puppet are partially orthogonal.  As you say, RHEN
> doesn''t do config management so well and, of course, Puppet shines
> here.  OTOH, Puppet is not so well[1] purposed for assuring systems
> are up-to-date and producing reports to prove this so I think systems
> like RHEN (if not maybe RHEN itself) still have a place in a Puppet
> run shop.
>
> -Brett.
>
> [1] Please, please correct me if I''m wrong!
Thanks

Peter
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

> Did a POC of it at my current company.  I''ve also had the RedHat
> Enterprise Deployment and Virtualization class.
>
> This product was originally envisioned began development before RedHat
> even had an IPO.  The reason I mention this is that the mindset around
> systems management at that time is what you''re getting with this
> product. Which means it was designed for management types to be able
> to say that everything is up to date and secure all the time.  I
don''t
> think they ever really fleshed it out as a systems management platform
> in the first place.
>
> I have also seen RedHat Sales Techs that couldn''t get the product
> installed and required my assistance to get it running.
>
> The process of adding your own content to Satellite is one of the most
> convoluted and time-intensive that I''ve seen. If you wish to add
your
> own packages, you must GPG all the packages and then find some way to
> distribute your keys, which Satellite cannot do for you (this is
> because the only way that would work through Satellite is if you
> packaged your gpg key and had a post script to run the rpm --import,
> but you can''t do that because all your packages must be signed and
> can''t be installed if your gpg key hasn''t already been
imported.
>
> The program claims support for Solaris, but it is woefully inadequate
> in a multitude of ways (esp. now with zones and containers)
>
> It was recently open-sourced, but they charge for the working version
> because it is completely dependent on Oracle to run and the license is
> for the embedded Oracle database that comes with it.  I haven''t
seen
> any progress making Satellite work on another RDBMS yet.
>
> The monitoring portion of the product is a joke and completely an
> afterthought.  It severely lacks any configurability or extensibility.
>
> The licensing scheme is insane.  You need an "entitlement" to
track
> the box and manage packages. You need another to do automated
> installs, and another to do monitoring.  All of these are PER MACHINE.
>
> When I asked about scalability, I was told there were Satellite Proxy
> servers, but they were really only to span physical locations, not
> really to distribute load.  When I asked if the product could be built
> out in such a way as to manage 10K+ machines, they told me we should
> pay them to maintain such a system for them.
>
> Even their instructors have been known to make veiled references to
> the poor conception and implementation of the product.
>
> I was told there would be some major changes in a newer version, but I
> believe we used 5.? in the class I took a little over a year ago. 
I''m
> guessing the major changes they were talking about were making it open
> source.
>
>   

i have looked at it many moons ago when RH came in to install it for us 
- it was rubbish then and it still is, i was trying to manage ~4000 
machines with it,

I am revisiting spacewalk, opensourced satellite, as i need to be able 
to ''show'' others that machines are up to date etc and for me
spacewalk
does this well. I will not however be using it to install any packages 
or configure machines. Cobbler, Puppet and yum does all that for me nicely.



--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

how do you then download *all* the packages installed on the 400 or so
servers from redhat, to seed your local repo ?

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Ohad Levy <ohadlevy@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would argue that a one time effort to get proper repo locally, would be
> much more efficient than using a tool like RHN Satellite.
> this way you control the content of your repository.
> additionally, I would really recommend against having multiple tools
> managing your systems.
>
> my 2c
> Ohad
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:39 AM, PeterBurkholder
<pburkholder@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> This is slightly off topic, and may just be tossing red meat to
y''all,
>> but here goes:
>>
>> My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
>> Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a web UI
wrapped
>> around a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration
>> management system.  I''m of the opinion that our time and money
would
>> be better spent getting off of RHN for package distribution, setting
>> up our own Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet, and
>> bringing in Luke Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet installation to
>> up to snuff.  FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that
need to be
>> managed, and we may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just
>> for the system subscriptions ($200 each).
>>
>> Does anyone here have recent experience with RHN Satellite, and care
>> to comment on its usefulness and functionality?   Or on its
>> shortcoming and pitfalls?  My Google searches aren''t turning
up any
>> useful reviews.  I''d like to be in a position to ask some
semi-
>> informed questions.
>>
>> ALSO: it would be great if there''s anyone in the Washington DC
area
>> that could come in to give a pitch for Puppet.  I did some work with
>> Puppet at my last job (up until three months ago), and I''ve
been a
>> proponent of it my current gig, but my experience isn''t really
deep
>> enough to make the case.
>>
>> Thanks for any opinions you can provide.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Peter
>> --
>> Peter Burkholder
>> pburkholder@pobox.com
>>
>>
>>
>
> >
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Sam Abed wrote:
> how do you then download *all* the packages installed on the 400 or so
> servers from redhat, to seed your local repo ?
This OTN article from Oracle on creating a local repository from ULN 
could probably be modified fairly easily to be used with RHEL.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/htdocs/yum-repository-setup.html

cYa,
Avi

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Mrepo: http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/mrepo/

Don''t forget that, if you''re using Red Hat''s updates,
you still need
to have a license for each system that you''re updating.

Trevor

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 21:07, Sam Abed <samabed@gmail.com>
wrote:
> how do you then download *all* the packages installed on the 400 or so
> servers from redhat, to seed your local repo ?
>
> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Ohad Levy <ohadlevy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I would argue that a one time effort to get proper repo locally, would
be
>> much more efficient than using a tool like RHN Satellite.
>> this way you control the content of your repository.
>> additionally, I would really recommend against having multiple tools
>> managing your systems.
>>
>> my 2c
>> Ohad
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:39 AM, PeterBurkholder
<pburkholder@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> This is slightly off topic, and may just be tossing red meat to
y''all,
>>> but here goes:
>>>
>>> My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
>>> Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a web UI
wrapped
>>> around a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration
>>> management system.  I''m of the opinion that our time and
money would
>>> be better spent getting off of RHN for package distribution,
setting
>>> up our own Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet, and
>>> bringing in Luke Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet installation
to
>>> up to snuff.  FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems that
need to be
>>> managed, and we may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K) just
>>> for the system subscriptions ($200 each).
>>>
>>> Does anyone here have recent experience with RHN Satellite, and
care
>>> to comment on its usefulness and functionality?   Or on its
>>> shortcoming and pitfalls?  My Google searches aren''t
turning up any
>>> useful reviews.  I''d like to be in a position to ask some
semi-
>>> informed questions.
>>>
>>> ALSO: it would be great if there''s anyone in the
Washington DC area
>>> that could come in to give a pitch for Puppet.  I did some work
with
>>> Puppet at my last job (up until three months ago), and
I''ve been a
>>> proponent of it my current gig, but my experience isn''t
really deep
>>> enough to make the case.
>>>
>>> Thanks for any opinions you can provide.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Peter
>>> --
>>> Peter Burkholder
>>> pburkholder@pobox.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> >
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

I''ve deleted some of the earlier postings on this subject so
I''m not sure if
this has already been mentioned but the open source alternative to RHN is
spacewalk which could be worth considering,
https://fedorahosted.org/spacewalk/

Rgds
Paul

2009/3/14 Trevor Vaughan <peiriannydd@gmail.com>
>
> Mrepo: http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/mrepo/
>
> Don''t forget that, if you''re using Red Hat''s
updates, you still need
> to have a license for each system that you''re updating.
>
> Trevor
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 21:07, Sam Abed <samabed@gmail.com> wrote:
> > how do you then download *all* the packages installed on the 400 or so
> > servers from redhat, to seed your local repo ?
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Ohad Levy <ohadlevy@gmail.com>
wrote:
> >>
> >> I would argue that a one time effort to get proper repo locally,
would
> be
> >> much more efficient than using a tool like RHN Satellite.
> >> this way you control the content of your repository.
> >> additionally, I would really recommend against having multiple
tools
> >> managing your systems.
> >>
> >> my 2c
> >> Ohad
> >>
> >> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:39 AM, PeterBurkholder
<pburkholder@gmail.com
> >
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> This is slightly off topic, and may just be tossing red meat
to y''all,
> >>> but here goes:
> >>>
> >>> My boss has RedHat coming in on Tuesday to give a spiel on RHN
> >>> Satellite.  I''m dubious, as it seems mostly like a
web UI wrapped
> >>> around a Yum repository system and a half-baked configuration
> >>> management system.  I''m of the opinion that our time
and money would
> >>> be better spent getting off of RHN for package distribution,
setting
> >>> up our own Yum repositories, getting a good start on Puppet,
and
> >>> bringing in Luke Kanies for a week to bring the Puppet
installation to
> >>> up to snuff.  FWIW, we''ll be looking about 50 systems
that need to be
> >>> managed, and we may not have to pay for server itself ($13.5K)
just
> >>> for the system subscriptions ($200 each).
> >>>
> >>> Does anyone here have recent experience with RHN Satellite,
and care
> >>> to comment on its usefulness and functionality?   Or on its
> >>> shortcoming and pitfalls?  My Google searches aren''t
turning up any
> >>> useful reviews.  I''d like to be in a position to ask
some semi-
> >>> informed questions.
> >>>
> >>> ALSO: it would be great if there''s anyone in the
Washington DC area
> >>> that could come in to give a pitch for Puppet.  I did some
work with
> >>> Puppet at my last job (up until three months ago), and
I''ve been a
> >>> proponent of it my current gig, but my experience
isn''t really deep
> >>> enough to make the case.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for any opinions you can provide.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>>
> >>> Peter
> >>> --
> >>> Peter Burkholder
> >>> pburkholder@pobox.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > >
> >
>
> >
>

-- 
Paul Matthews
----------------------------------------------------------------------

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

> how do you then download *all* the packages installed on the 400 or so
> servers from redhat, to seed your local repo ?
https://rhn.redhat.com/rhn/software/downloads/SupportedISOs.do

You can download the DVD images of the releases and loopback-mount them
somewhere under apache''s DocumentRoot (or whatever''s
equivalent) and
you''re done.

This way I only use RHN for post-latest-release packages updates.

Marc



--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Thought I''d chime in here since most of these comments seem to be
negative.  This is the second organization I''ve worked at using
Satellite.  It has some issues, but it has also saved me countless
hours of work.  It is NOT a configuration management tool, that was
never its intent.  There is a cobbled together work-around called
"Configuration Channels" but I''ve only ever seen this
implemented
cleanly once.

Like everything else Redhat, it depends on who you get a hold of in
the organization for help.  Our TAM got us in touch with internal
Satellite resources and we''ve had a great deal of success building a
global Satellite infrastructure.  It is an invaluable tool for
maintaining consistency throughout the organization as well as bare
metal provisioning, updates and upgrades.

We have about 7,000 RH servers under management and I understand the
frustration that I see expressed in a lot of these posts.  All I can
say is that implementing a Satellite server CORRECTLY is not easy.
It''s a very different kind of mindset that''s used for managing
the way
a system is defined and it takes a good deal of experience to
understand it and make sure you''re using Satellite properly. 
I''ve
seen plenty of poorly implemented Satellite servers and I would agree
that that is worse than nothing at all.  Correctly implemented, it''s a
trivial task for me to update an entire environment and validate its
success, or build an in-the-box system into a ready to deploy
application server at the push of a button.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Gah!  Just noticed you said you''ve got 50 servers.  Don''t
bother.
It''s not worth the expense or the hassle.  500 servers?  5,000
servers?  Completely different story.

Gajillion wrote:
> Thought I''d chime in here since most of these comments seem to be
> negative.  This is the second organization I''ve worked at using
> Satellite.  It has some issues, but it has also saved me countless
> hours of work.  It is NOT a configuration management tool, that was
> never its intent.  There is a cobbled together work-around called
> "Configuration Channels" but I''ve only ever seen this
implemented
> cleanly once.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---