[chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: anyone interested in a "hardware" cookbook?

[Bryan Berry < >]

Great comments as usual Atomic Penguin, I mean Eric ;)

On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 4:43 AM, Eric G. Wolfe < "> > wrote:

documented example.  I'm open to thoughts from real-world and potential users of the existing cookbook.  Yet, one of the problems discussed in length at the summit is Debian/Ubuntu and RHEL/CentOS world view separation in Chef cooking.  One could make the "case node[:platform]" problem even worse than what has already been seen in cookbooks.

Could you elaborate on that problem? Is the problem that some cookbooks only address EL or deb or is it that accommodating EL and deb in the same recipe is turning recipe code into spaghetti?

 

As far as a "hardware" recipe that covers multi-vendor rack-and-stack nodes and also "virtual" hardware, I don't think that is the right approach, at least right now.  Those are two different problem spaces.  On the "real hardware" side, our Dell OMSA stuff would make a good fit in the snmp cookbook.  Is that also what the hp-health helper exists to do, serve up a vendor specific OID tree exposing hardware metrics?  On the other hand, the virtualization tools are hypervisor helper libraries.  Because those tools in the virtualization space have nothing to do with hardware monitoring or snmp, right?

True, good point

 

I am really leaning towards it is better to address a specific problem space really well, than a multi-faceted cookbook addressing many problem spaces in a mediocre manner.  Once those individual problems are addressed well, I think it makes sense to bring them all together in a more generalized cookbook like the "application" or "database" cookbooks.

Existing yumrepo default does this:
1. Configures yum.conf by inclusion of yum::yum
2. Configures EPEL repo, but installs nothing specific from EPEL.  Duplicate exists in yum::epel
3. Configures Dell repos.  Installs OpenManage, starts OpenManage, and optionally downloads hardware specific firmware.  Does it belong in a hardware, dell, or snmp cookbook?
4. Configures VMWare repo.  Installs vmware-tools helper libraries for VMs on an ESX hypervisor.  Tries to safely remove any manually installed vmware-tools, in favor of something shipped and managed by yum.  So does that belong in a vmware-tools, or virtualization cookbook?  Because this has really nothing to do with monitoring the VM. 

 

In summary, vmware-tools and Dell OMSA recipes exist.  There might be a misuse of cookbook naming/organization which hide that fact.  Like I said, its an opinionated cookbook.  I would love to codify and automate other people's hardware and virtualization vendor problems.  It is hard for any one person, or only a few, to deliver them all.  Anyone who wants to see more of an "application" or "database" meta-cookbook in these areas could take on an under-represented problem in that space.  If they don't know how/where to start, I for one, am willing to help.  But one cannot effectively codify a problem they have not seen or understand.  I'm just trying to better understand the problem, and bring some of the summit ideas and concerns into this discussion.

The problem is essentially laziness on my part. I want a recipe(s) from one cookbook that installs vmware-tools on my vm whether it is EL or deb. I want the same functionality for virtualbox. I also need different recipes for vmware-tools because my vmware-administrator insists on using the tarball that comes w/ the ESX host. 

A hardware cookbook seems a good enough place for myself and others to dump such recipes. I will probably put the the hw monitoring stuff in there as well. When and if it grows beyond a few recipes, I will move it into a separate coookbook. 

You point out correctly that hardware monitoring is far different from paravirtualization tools. I would prefer to start w/ a broad cookbook and refactor it later than start w/ a small optimized one. 

On 12/01/2011 09:27 AM, Bryan Berry wrote:

Graham,  that would be great

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Graham Stewart < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

For the bare metal part, I have a nice simple cookbook we're using for installing Dell OMSA on a fleet of Dell servers. I'd be happy to contribute it ...

On 11-12-01 03:04 AM, Bryan Berry wrote:

AtomicPenguin (Eric Wolfe) has put a good bit of work into the yumrepo
recipes like vmware-tools and dell which detect and installs
virtualization and management tools specific to those hardware or
virtualization platforms.

I would want the similar functionality for a VM running in VMware
Fusion, virtualbox, Xen, etc where adding the "recipe[hardware]" adds
the paravirtualization tools specific to that platform.

For machine running on actual bare metal, I want "recipe[hardware]" to
detect and install the hardware management tools, be they Dell, HP, IBM,
etc.

recipes

default -- detect current hardware or virt platform and install related
tools
vmware-tools - install the paravirtualization tools for vmware
virtualbox - see vmware-tools
hp  - install hp-health tools for bare metal machine
dell - install dell openmanage
ibm - ....

anyone else interested in such a cookbook? I would only do the subset
that relates to the platforms i use.


By the way, credit for this idea belongs to jpalmer who is creating
something like this for puppet

--
Graham Stewart           " target="_blank">  416-550-2806
Network and Storage Services Manager, Information Technology Services
University of Toronto Libraries
130 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A5