Re: Controlled Change Management

[Kai Großjohann]

Scott Walters <scott@PacketPushers.com> writes:

>       I'd like to have cfengine be an audit tool that is capable of
> change, WHEN I WANT IT TO.  In a true production environment, I can't have
> cfgengine constantly massaging systems to keep them running.  If they are
> deviating from a norm, I need to be able to determing why, since all
> changes should be scheduled.
>
>       I just get the feeling that cfengine is a tool that is being used
> in environments where 'getting it to work' is good enough, and there are
> not rigid change management policies/procedures in place.

First of all, you can use a revision control system to maintain
different branches of the cfengine configuration.  Then the
production systems use the stable branch and you can migrate changes
between branches after testing is successful.

Secondly, you can also put all versions in one config file, protected
by classes.  Say you have 

editfiles:
foo_server::
    { /etc/foo
      ....
    }

in your config file.  Now you want to try to modify the "..." part.
So you copy the whole shebang:

editfiles:
foo_server::
    { /etc/foo
      ....
    }
foo_testing::
    { /etc/foo
      ...changed.commands...
    }

Now you arrange things so that on the testing system the class
foo_testing is defined instead of foo_server, then you can test to
your heart's content.
-- 
Ambibibentists unite!