Introduction

Imagine you can start from beginning in a new environment. There are no automatic frameworks to install and configure systems in place.

Installation versus Configuration

We need a system to install machines and one to configure machines. Although there are systems out there which try to do both at the same time, the experience is having two specialised tools for this job is the better choice: Each tool can focus on its own task best.

Some tools even enforce a reinstallation, if something needs to be reconfigured, which is a good example why having two tools is the better choice.

Seperating the installation from the configuration also allows you to have the newly setup system minimally configured and adjust it on demand, wheras having both in the same step would require to define the use at installation time.

Where to start?

Now the question is, which tool do we install first? The automatic installation or configuration? From a logical way on how a system is built, the installation method should be preferred, because only an installed system can be configured. But as you can see shortly, this is a bad choice, as it results in the following steps:

  • Manual installation of a system
  • Manual installation of installation tool
  • Manual configuration of installation tool
  • Automatic installation of a new system for the configuration tool (optional)
  • Manual installation of configuration tool
  • Manual configuration of the configuration tool
  • Automatic configuration of installation and configuration tool possible

If we change the order, we'll benefit from an automatic infrastructure earlier:

  • Manual installation of a system
  • Manual installation of a configuration tool
  • Manual configuration of the configuration tool
  • Automatic installation of an installation tool
  • Automatic configuration of an installation tool
  • Automatic installation of a new system for the configuration or installation tool (optional)

Ok, but what to do with these information?

As you might have watched my recent activities, I've written a new configuration management tool named cdist, started a project to install unix installers named cuni and try to bring together the unix community in the u2u project.

The idea described above is the result of an old discussion, but not having an installation framework at home a current problem.

The plan

As cdist is ready to be used in production mode, I plan to write some cdist types to setup installation servers soon.

Watch this blog for updates, if you want to install a installation server via configuration management or begin to bootstrap a UNIX infrastructure.