Puppet users - Aug 2009 - Using Puppet for updating Ubuntu machines over the network

Hello!

I''m new with Puppet and as far as I have searched I couldn''t
find a
very good solution for updating some machines over the network. I
could use Puppet to do a cron job for that but I don''t have so much
control over the updates and I want to have a more flexible option for
starting those updates other than a cron job and I don''t want to
distrub the people who are using those machines for updates.
Have you done something like that or do you have some ideas? By the
way, the machines which I want to update are installed with Ubuntu.

Thank you in advance for your answers!

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> I''m new with Puppet and as far as I have searched I
couldn''t find a
> very good solution for updating some machines over the network. I
I think that many on the list feel that you should use the correct
tool for the job here, which in your case sounds like an apt-get or
equivalent via cron.  I do the same here on sles boxes via zypper and
rug.
> could use Puppet to do a cron job for that but I don''t have so
much
> control over the updates and I want to have a more flexible option for
Here''s how I handle this:

Updates are mirrored from Novell and stored in a sandbox repository.
The sandbox hosts apply updates every Friday via a cron job.  This
includes updates that require a reboot.

The sandbox repo is mirrored up to the test layer every two weeks,
which gives us a chance to catch anything that really breaks our
environment.

Once we are comfortable with the patches in test, we mirror the repo
up to the production layer.  Updates are not automatic here.  Instead,
a cron job runs a script that generates a report that details all of
the updates ready to be applied, including the category of update, and
whether a reboot is required.  It sends this report to our ticketing
system and cc''s it to an admin mailbox.  Based on that ticket, an
administrator creates a change control request to apply the updates
listed.
> starting those updates other than a cron job and I don''t want to
> distrub the people who are using those machines for updates.
The obvious thing to do here would be to schedule the updates for off
hours.  In my case, the production updates are done by hand by an
administrator.
> Have you done something like that or do you have some ideas? By the
> way, the machines which I want to update are installed with Ubuntu.
The reporting tool I mentioned is available here - you may be able to
adapt this for Ubuntu:

http://blog.barfoo.org/2008/08/16/zypper-update-report-was-patch2mail-for-sles10/

--Justin

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On Thursday 27 August 2009 07:55:58 E. Andrasi wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I''m new with Puppet and as far as I have searched I
couldn''t find a
> very good solution for updating some machines over the network. I
> could use Puppet to do a cron job for that but I don''t have so
much
> control over the updates and I want to have a more flexible option for
> starting those updates other than a cron job and I don''t want to
> distrub the people who are using those machines for updates.
> Have you done something like that or do you have some ideas? By the
> way, the machines which I want to update are installed with Ubuntu.
>
> Thank you in advance for your answers!
Maybe the ''unattended-upgrades'' package can be useful for
this. Not widely
used yet, but...

-- 
##############################
### Jordi Funollet
### http://www.terraquis.net


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Justin Kinney wrote:
>> I''m new with Puppet and as far as I have searched I
couldn''t find a
>> very good solution for updating some machines over the network. I
>>     
>
> I think that many on the list feel that you should use the correct
> tool for the job here, which in your case sounds like an apt-get or
> equivalent via cron.  I do the same here on sles boxes via zypper and
> rug.
>
>   
>> could use Puppet to do a cron job for that but I don''t have so
much
>> control over the updates and I want to have a more flexible option for
>>     
>
> Here''s how I handle this:
>
> Updates are mirrored from Novell and stored in a sandbox repository.
> The sandbox hosts apply updates every Friday via a cron job.  This
> includes updates that require a reboot.
>
> The sandbox repo is mirrored up to the test layer every two weeks,
> which gives us a chance to catch anything that really breaks our
> environment.
>
> Once we are comfortable with the patches in test, we mirror the repo
> up to the production layer.  Updates are not automatic here.  Instead,
> a cron job runs a script that generates a report that details all of
> the updates ready to be applied, including the category of update, and
> whether a reboot is required.  It sends this report to our ticketing
> system and cc''s it to an admin mailbox.  Based on that ticket, an
> administrator creates a change control request to apply the updates
> listed.
>
>   
>> starting those updates other than a cron job and I don''t want
to
>> distrub the people who are using those machines for updates.
>>     
>
> The obvious thing to do here would be to schedule the updates for off
> hours.  In my case, the production updates are done by hand by an
> administrator.
>
>   
>> Have you done something like that or do you have some ideas? By the
>> way, the machines which I want to update are installed with Ubuntu.
>>     
>
> The reporting tool I mentioned is available here - you may be able to
> adapt this for Ubuntu:
>
>
http://blog.barfoo.org/2008/08/16/zypper-update-report-was-patch2mail-for-sles10/
>
> --Justin
>
> >
>   
Justin''s definitely laid out the enterprise way of doing this. If you 
don''t have rigorous testing like this, you can run the updates via a 
capistrano task. (This is what I do) I have tasks for each site that is 
named aptup_${sitename} then I also have an aptup task that takes an 
argument (server name) in case I need to do a one off. This way you get 
the output of the upgrade, but for something silly or trivial you can 
upgrade whole sites without much to worry about.

-- 
Joe McDonagh
Operations Engineer
www.colonfail.com


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We use Puppet environments for unstable, testing, stable, and mirror
this with our own apt repositories.

Thus our sources list for a given unstable/testing/stable install
matches the equivalent apt repository, with a template.

We do schedule apt updates just before each puppet run.

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