Open source systems management: Two conferences, two talks

I had the privilege of giving not one but two talks at the Red Hat Summit–both about open source systems management topics. A good deal of this content was also shared with a different audience at FudCON–the Fedora Users and Developers Conference. This was a great trip to Boston, and a fantastic chance to talk with users, administrators, and developers of all types.

The first talk I had a part in was Func, which I co-presented with Adrian Likins. Func, as mentioned before in Red Hat Magazine, is an API for controlling lots of nodes for arbitrary systems management tasks. It is ideally suited for replacing legacy SSH infrastructure as well as building new network applications that require secure network communications infrastructure.

We gave an overview for folks that hadn’t heard of Func before, and showed off several examples of things you can do with the Python API. Interest in Func is growing, and lots of folks are using it in ways we hadn’t originally intended (which is, of course, the idea).

One such application that surprised us was Open Symbolic, which aims to be a user-friendly systems management application written on Func. Additionally, some of our own IT folks have written a very lightweight “cloud” type management application using Func, which you should hear more about shortly. At the conclusion of that talk there were some very good questions about how things work, and also some interest in future expansions (with hopefully some patches coming down the pipe).

My second talk was about Cobbler, our next-generation installation server. I was very pleased to see Cobbler’s talk was standing-room only, showing that there is a lot of need for good tools to help streamline Linux installations and low-level datacenter setup tasks. Again, there were a tremendously good set of questions asked, and the community is already getting a lot larger with people trying out Cobbler after hearing about it at Summit. I’m happy to see that.

The current idea behind Cobbler is to build a common installation service that various applications can use to deploy Linux (more on this below)rather than having to keep creating these components. I’ll also be extending it to deal with image-based deployments in addition to traditional kickstart deployments.

As always, we’ll continue to gather a large community of sysadmins to work together and build common tooling we can all share. The basic premise is that by working together, we can build tools that are more powerful than the tools we could build alone. By following an open development model with shared tools, the need to reinvent the same wheels to do the same tasks goes away.

We’re also building a large set of community documentation based on deployment best practices and tricks, and I hope to roll this into a nice openly licensed manual and deployment guide later this year. Open community, open code, open docs — neat!

And while all of this is nice, the most exciting part of Summit was the announcement about Spacewalk. Spacewalk is the project name for the open-sourcing of Red Hat Satellite Server. This is not a “community edition”, it’s everything. The upstream for all code in the project is going to the website, and we’re already seeing a lot of interest from existing Satellite customers and prospective users. We had a lot of great discussion at FudCON about places the project might go, and there have already been several non-Red Hat patches made against the codebase.

We also announced that Satellite will be using Cobbler to provide advanced deployment support next year, so we can already see the advantages of getting these tools to work together. Planned work includes adding open source database alternatives and improving our support for Fedora and derivative distributions.

In the future, Func may have a place in Spacewalk as well. We can also look at incorporating other proven open source management applications, tools, and libraries. Everyone is encouraged to join the Spacewalk mailing lists or IRC channels (#spacewalk on irc.freenode.net) if they are interested in learning more or have ideas/questions.

These three applications, in general, constitute a new way of thinking. Namely, how can we apply the Fedora Development model towards enterprise management applications and sysadmin-level tools and processes?

Rather than buy tooling from a vendor or inventing internal frameworks that disappear when one changes jobs or departments, what can we share and openly build together and re-use? While we use the Fedora model to produce a community-driven distribution, we’re now also using it to produce better ways to manage Enterprise Linux. This development model applies just as equally to Enterprise Linux as it does Fedora. It just works.

As Paul Frields (the Fedora Project Leader) indicated at FudCON, the future of Fedora (and in turn, Fedora Hosted Projects and Extras Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL)) is about lowering barriers to entry and encouraging collaboration–we are already doing well on technical grounds. How do we encourage more collaboration around management software? For starters, we work at making it easier to install. And we must make sure the communities remain active and integral, and continue to grow.

A lot of management software is hard to find and install because it’s not yet part of the distribution. I would encourage all ISVs out there that write open source software to look at getting their content into EPEL, where it can be easily found via search and is yum-installable. I’d also like them to take a look at how we are building strong communities around our projects using Fedora Hosted Infrastructure–and to take those examples to their own projects and communities.

Regardless of who we work for, open communication and collaboration are how we get ahead–and Fedora (and EPEL) are providing an outstanding breeding ground for open source software now–even in what was previously thought of as an “Enterprise” type cathedral environment. I should also mention that the Fedora community is full of packaging experts and smart folks who can help you. Join #fedora-devel on irc.freenode.net and say hi.

If you’re not interested in development, but adminster systems and want to know how you can help out, take a look at Mike McGrath’s new CSI venture.

Good ideas come from where we least expect them. The Fedora development model and infrastructure are really powerful ways to create software, documentation, and tools that solve problems for people who need to manage their Linux infrastructure. Whether you are interested in Cobbler, Func, or Spacewalk–or even if you’re interested in Linux systems management in general–let’s get together, find better ways to collaborate, and invest in the operating systems that we all love.

So, that’s my summary of the Red Hat Summit and FUDCon. Boston’s a beautiful city and I will give it a pass for not having sweet tea at all available restaurants. I look forward to Summit and FUDCon next year–we’re growing fast in Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux land, and there’s still many more places to go.

This entry was posted by mpdehaan on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under events, Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.