On May 30, 3:36 pm, S Ahmed <sahmed1...@gmail.com>
wrote:> Other than learning on to build a puppet repo, what other
> skills/tutorials/docs can you point me to do learn how to admin a puppet
> setup.
When you say "build a Puppet repo", I guess you''re talking
about
writing manifests. That is probably the most significant aspect of
using Puppet, so you''re cutting out a lot when you exclude it.
> What sort of day to day issues to you guys run into, and what are they
> command line tools that I should learn?
For Puppet itself, you need to know the varied modes of the "puppet"
command for controlling the agent, the certificate authority, etc.
> /var/log/syslog seems to be the place to look for any issues for things
like
> agent''s not being able to connect or problems with the catalog.
>
> I know this is a open ended question, but I want to be prepared :)
Puppet automates a variety of system administration tasks, but it does
not replace a system administrator -- rather it empowers one. You
will not administer Puppet well if you are not a capable system
administrator apart from Puppet.
To really be effective, it helps to understand how to adminster your
systems without relying on GUI admin tools. From your question, I
guess you recognize that. The real sysadmin''s toolset includes at
least these programs (in no particular order):
Basic filesystem commands:
mkdir, rmdir, ln (-s), rm
Advanced filesystem commands:
mount, umount, chown, chmod
Package management:
yum / apt / etc. as appropriate
Service management:
(varies, but for example:) chkconfig, service
Scheduling:
cron
Scripting:
sh / bash
User and Group management:
(varies, but for example:) useradd, usermod, userdel, groupadd,
groupmod, groupdel, chsh
Basic security management:
passwd
There others, too, some fundamental, but all less relevant to Puppet.
But even being expert with all of those doesn''t make you much of a
sysadmin. Other than system privilege, what makes a sysadmin is not
so much his tools, but rather his understanding of how the system
works. What do various services do? Which files configure system
operations and policy, and how? If the network is down, how do you
bring it up? Where are the user home directories? Where are the
system logs? Where are the various shell startup scripts? And so on.
I''m not sure where you''re coming from skill-wise, but
don''t be
discouraged if all that sounds like a lot. Nobody is born knowing
that stuff, and few sysadmins are across-the-board experts in all of
the above. Everyone improves with experience. If you''re not
confident in your general sysadmin abilities, however, then do be wary
of taking a position where you don''t have a superior or peers who can
help you in that area. For help with Puppet, though, you have
us :-) .
John
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