Re: Backing up system customization: Is Debian packaging better than Remastersys?
On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> wrote:
> On 01/30/2013 11:29 AM, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
>> On Ma, 29 ian 13, 11:20:42, Linux-Fan wrote:
>>> On 01/28/2013 11:02 PM, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
>>>> On Du, 27 ian 13, 19:12:40, Martin Steigerwald wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, for only 4 systems puppet might be a bit off. I´d suggest starting with
>>>>> puppet not before at least 10 systems.
>>>>
>>>> The initial setup is definitely not trivial, but afterwards you sit back
>>>> and relax ;)
>>>
>>> This is also what I expect from Debian packaging: Work once, enjoy later.
>>
>> While you can certainly (ab)use custom Debian packages for your needs I
>> strongly believe in "the right tool for the right job", which I think
>> puppet is much closer to.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Andrei
>
> The perfect solution would be to use both then: Debian packaging for the
> software and Puppet for the configuration. [1] supports this idea, but I
> guess that I will "abuse" packaging for the configuration (at least
> until I find out that it does not work or is difficult to maintain) in
> order not to have to learn two complex systems.
>
> [1]
> http://serverfault.com/questions/215545/deploy-our-own-software-using-puppet
While it may be overkill/overengineered, here are the things I do on
my home network -- 16 Debian machines, both i386 and amd64, and across
the board from stable to testing to unstable, running a gamut of
software (worstations, firewall, wiki, monitoring, etc.
puppet - I have an ever-growing list of modules. The nice part about
puppet is that you can do a base build, install puppet, and do all of
the cert-signing, running "puppet agent -t" and watching all your
goodies install. It's almost magical. :)
sysdata script - I also have a script that runs nightly that captures
the package list (using dpkg --get-selections, as someone mentioned),
drive layout, debconf database, and autoinstalled packages. This is
saved to /var/backups/<hostname>-<day of week>.gz, so it keeps a
week's worth and cleans up after itself. Another nice thing that this
does is to give me a pool of package lists, so that I can create
generic "type" machines, workstation, wiki, firewall, etc., then
tailor the package list as needed.
etckeeper - A package that places a git repo under /etc, and captures
changes to /etc config files, mainly by puppet and apt, which both
have "hooks" files to implement changes. The truly paranoid could
combine/clone all of the git repos onto a machine, but I am content
using the next one for that.
backups - I use backuppc to back up my systems' full/incrementally. I
am using rsync, though you can also use tar or smb as needed.
Between all of these, I would have to work to lose an entire machine. :)
HTH,
--b
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