7 of the Best Free Linux Configuration Management Tools
System administrators are responsible for the maintenance and
operation of a computer system and network. This is a major task with a
huge number of decisions to be made regarding the configuration of the
system.
Configuration Management is a term that may not be familiar to
many Linux users. But for system administrators the concept will be
well known. In a nutshell, Configuration Management software
enables administrators to automatically manage the entire configuration
of one or multiple computers.
Why is this type of software important? By having
tools that automate the configuration and software infrastructure, an
organisation's server administration costs are reduced. Furthermore,
this type of software enables a large complicated infrastructure to be
supported with fewer system administrators. There are also efficiency
improvements made by helping to reduce the amount of repetitive tasks
performed by the administrator. Moreover, configuration management
software help organisations to be able to scale up their computer
infrastructure more easily and to instill flexibility in server
configuration.
Configuration Management tools work by changing the state of
the system. The goal is to get a system from whatever state it is in,
into the desired state. The state of a system is mostly described by
all the configuration files in the file system, and by the programs and
processes that are running.
The software featured in this article are declarative
configuration management system. Here the system administrator decides
what state the system is to be in, and a runtime pushes the system into
that state.
To provide an insight into the quality of software that is
available, we have compiled a list of 7 high quality Linux
Configuration Management tools. Hopefully, there will be something of
interest for any organisation that wants to streamline their computer
infrastructure.
Now, let's explore the 7 Configuration Management
tools at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a
full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together
with links to relevant resources and reviews.
| Configuration Management Tools |
| Cfengine |
Tool for configuring and maintaining network machines
|
| Bcfg2 |
Generates
configuration sets for clients bound by client profiles |
| Chef |
Configuration management system written in Ruby |
| Puppet |
Centralised
configuration management for networks |
| OCS
Inventory NG |
Hardware and software inventory tool |
| PIKT |
Problem
Informant / Killer Tool |
| SmartFrog |
Smart Framework for Object Groups |
|
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Last Updated Wednesday, June 20 2012 @ 04:13 PM EDT
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