Questions tagged [configuration-management]

Software configuration management (SCM) is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software deployments

In software engineering, software configuration management (SCM) is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software. Configuration management practices include revision control and the establishment of baselines.

SCM concerns itself with answering the question "Somebody did something, how can one reproduce it?" Often the problem involves not reproducing "it" identically, but with controlled, incremental changes. Answering the question thus becomes a matter of comparing different results and of analysing their differences. Traditional configuration management typically focused on the controlled creation of relatively simple products. Now, implementers of SCM face the challenge of dealing with relatively minor increments under their own control, in the context of the complex system being developed. According to another simple definition: Software Configuration Management is how you control the evolution of a software project.

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Are configuration management tools appropriate to use as deployment tools?

Off the back of my answer to the question: How can DevOps help to improve Software Escrow procedures? Tensibai had the question: What would necessitate Capistrano on top of puppet or chef? My response was to post a link to Noah Gibbs' article "Do…
Richard Slater
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Tool for storing per environment configuration

I have a requirement to store configuration information on a per environment basis in a tool. This is a tool with a GUI for adding/updating configuration values (e.g connection strings). This should have a default value and be able to change this…
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Assertions and constraints

I'm constructing a template to build a configuration file, and the service that consumes this file places constraints on identifier lengths. If an identifier is longer than, say, 6 characters, the service will get part-way through applying the…
Michael Mol
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How to Chef things that don't exist yet

Let us say I have some Chef code like: require 'mixlib/shellout' yum_package 'somepackage' myvar = Mixlib::ShellOut.new('/bin/somecommand').run_command.stdout.strip Where /bin/somecommand does not exist yet because it is installed by somepackage.…
Gaius
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Artifactory vs Git for Infrastructure Version Control / Configuration Management

I'm trying to understand the difference between managing configuration files for the purposes of simplifying automated deployment. We have 5 environments to build. So far 2 have been built with no versioning at all. Right now we're using Artifactory…
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Does load balancer F5 support CasC (Configuration as Code)?

Using CasC with F5 would allow for versioned and optionally dynamic network endpoint configuration, saving time and reducing risks. Does this tool support this? Are Single Configuration Files (SCF, F5 term) the vehicle to do that?
Ta Mu
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A comparison of idempotence and immutability

Many in the DevOps apply the cattle-not-pets mentality by implementing immutable infrastructure and redeploying when changes are needed (instead of modifying). Configuration management has a similar principle of idempotence. What are the comparative…
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Why not use configuration management tool instead of Dockerfile?

I'm pretty new to Docker and configuration management tools. At first I started writing bash scripts to provision my Vagrant boxes for my development machines, but now I've switched to using Chef for that so that I can use the same source to…
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How to integrate multiple "feature" react apps into monolithic PHP repo?

We have a mono-laravel-repo and are in the process of migrating to a cleaner, easier to maintain dev reboot. We have recently moved towards migrating our existing PHP based views into multiple React-based "features" that live in a /react directory…
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Does Ansible have component akin to PuppetDB?

I know Puppet from (limited) experience and have noticed that in configuration management there is now a strong trend towards Ansible. On the one hand, I understand that Ansible does not require an agent, because it makes intelligent use of ssh. On…
Drux
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Are NixOS and GuixSD the incoming Linux distros of DevOps?

The main advantage of these distros is the declarative approach which allows for setup to be done in the same way as you would configure a Vagrantfile or Dockerfile. In the way that Docker replaced/is replacing VMs for reproducibility, is there a…
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What are some clear benefits of running master/agent configuration management?

Ansible seems to have a clear advantage over competition like chef and puppet because it is agent-less and saves a certain degree of overhead. I have read several comparisons of the various configuration tools and while each tool has its own…
Wings
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Handle OS and Software maintenance/updates on Hardware distributed to Customers

In the last weeks I have tried to find a solution to the following scenario assuming that someone else had similar requirements and documented his solution but all my searches were unsuccessful. So now I'll just ask away and hope that someone with…
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OpenShift configuration management

As far as I can tell, reading the OpenShift documentation, including https://github.com/openshift/training/, the officially published "standard" way to manage OpenShift configuration (about their objects like services, build config etc.) is to…
AnoE
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How are declarative distros different than Kickstart?

NixOS and GuixSD both bill themselves as "declarative" and DevOps-friendly. How and in what ways are these declarative distros different than Kickstart and/or a Linux distro managed by a configuration management tool? What advantages and/or…
James Shewey
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