[Infrastructures] Re: Host installs?

[stephen white]

On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 04:02 PM, Jim Rowan wrote:
> For instance (as a poor example, I know), next week when it comes time 
> to sync the time on all your boxes, you're going to have to install 
> NTP on the rest of them.  The problem with this "pre-planning" of the 
> functions that a box should perform is that you have to be pretty good 
> at it, and your environment pretty static, or you do significantly 
> more work in the long run.

I think the missing piece of the puzzle that I had in place that let me 
do this was that I could either choose the normal option of full 
rebuilds for every change, and I was also able to in-place rebuild 
machines. So I was able to select a group of machines for NTP, and 
splat the update out without upsetting any active users.

> Do you find it ironic that you're willing to force a single hardware 
> image but go out of your way not to in the software arena?

No. I find hardware to be much easier than software issues.

> Ugh.  Apparently you're not joking.  This is not a model that promotes 
> organizational efficiency, flexibility, capability, ... harmony, 
> teamwork ...

I freely admit that I'm a BOFH. :)

Nevertheless, there is a synergistic effect from using common tools as 
much as possible. Look at GNU or Apple to see how a single standard 
works very well, albeit up to the point that something else would be 
better. All I'm doing here is removing the dead ends and blind alleys 
in favour of encouraging users to use the same tools as each other, up 
to the point that they're motivated to explicitly ask me for something 
else.

--
   steve@cs.adelaide.edu.au