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Questions tagged [configuration-management]

Configuration Management refers to establishing and maintaining standardized system configurations within an organization. This tag encompasses the process of defining the configuration profiles, and the software used to manage and deploy it.

Configuration Management refers to establishing and maintaining standardized system configurations within an organization.

This tag encompasses the process of defining the configuration profiles, and the software used to manage and deploy it, such as , , and .

378 questions
52
votes
12 answers

How to record server changes?

So we've all probably had this situation: you debug some problem, only to realize it was caused by a config change you made six months ago, and you can't remember why you did it. So you undo it and fix the problem, and now some other problem comes…
scobi
  • 879
31
votes
2 answers

Is Configuration Management useable for a small number of servers?

If I use something like Ansible or Puppet, and I only have two servers, is that defeating the purpose of using these products? I thought that if I configured one server, I could use one of these to duplicate it on the other.
johnny
  • 2,348
11
votes
3 answers

What tool can I use to manage the configuration of my Windows Server environments

I help manage environments for an application that uses cloud-based Windows server VMs. The application stack consists of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2008, IIS, and SharePoint 2010. I have several environments…
Shane Wealti
  • 431
5
votes
3 answers

How to manage configuration & automatic rollout of 20 virtual machines

I have a TeamCity build server, with about 20 "build agents", both Windows and MacOS machines. Often, I need to install a newer version of XCode or VisualStudio or some other tool. Having to do this on all machines manually is boring and error…
Lucas Meijer
  • 63
5
votes
2 answers

Generating/managing config files for hosted application

Edit - I'm starting to look into Perl's Template-Toolkit. It seems to fit the bill nicely for the problem described below. Has anyone played with it? Any (detailed) advice? I asked a question about config management, and haven't seen a reply. It's…
mfinni
  • 36,247
3
votes
2 answers

Managing servers, applications, configuration and their contacts

Currently we are using a wiki (Confluence) to track this information like: servers applications configuration (IP addressees, domains used owners (contacts) The problem is that a wiki does not scale too well for editing structured data. Is there…
sorin
  • 8,226
1
vote
1 answer

configuration mangement on third party devices

Can anyone point me in the direction of configuration management software used for access and distribution level equipment? (i.e. DSLAM, GPON Equipment, Proprietary IP PBX Systems) These devices normally have telnet/ssh but have closed OS's. Thanks…
notmyname
  • 142
1
vote
1 answer

How would you get a list of all the applications in use at your company?

I'm responsible for maintaining a list of all the applications in my company (about 250). The range is from HR systems that track 80k employees, to manufacturing-type systems responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, to web…
Kaiser Advisor
  • 115
1
vote
0 answers

How to handle and avoid unmanaged system state with configuration management?

When managing the state of a server using a configuration management tool (e.g. salt, puppet, ansible), one can quite easily develop 'unmanaged' state through application of successive versions of the configuration. For example, one could go…
Rob Gilton
  • 111
0
votes
0 answers

How do you keep track of how a certain software installation impacts your system?

I would like to get some advice on how you approach a new software installation on Windows to be able to extract the impact that software makes on your system and attack surface. I need to know what changes the software makes on the system such as…
0siris
  • 13
0
votes
0 answers

Best way to keep the list of servers, OSs, Databases and so on

I have a Microsoft Visio file in which I list the list of sever my organization has, but not only that, also wich OS they have, Databases, and so on. The problem with the Visio file is that is something static and very graphic oriented. I would like…
user2128078
  • 101
0
votes
0 answers

How to manage server systems so that service consumers are notified before changes are made?

Our IT department has around 90 people. We manage systems and create applications. The systems are of varying size from SAP to Lotus Notes to Tivoli Access Manager (TAM). Increasingly, the applications we create connect to these systems via web…
paul
  • 181
0
votes
1 answer

Recommended approach for configuration management of the small but vital changes on Linux servers

Folks - what is the recommended approach for controlling and recording small but vital changes on the Linux servers - creation of the group, adding users to a sudo, etc.? We use Salt for the major deployments, but I also want to influence owners of…
Edmon
  • 111
0
votes
0 answers

Which configuration management tool has the best Windows support?

Of the major configuration management tools such as puppet, chef, salt, ansible, etc... which package has the best support for Windows server operating system?
Shane Wealti
  • 431
0
votes
1 answer

Best practice for production server configuration changes?

Changing the configuration of a production server is dangerous. A safety measure might involve taking a full system image snapshot prior to the change, changing the configuration and then, in the event of a severe problem, restoring from the…
James Bowery
  • 158
1
2