CFEngine bloghttp://cfengine.com/enMon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0200Contao Open Source CMSA Case Study in CFEngine LayoutI've been working a lot with CFEngine newbies. CFEngine has been described as flour, eggs, milk and butter. All the ingredients needed to make a cake. Getting the new CFEngine user to recognize, then become excited about the possibilities that CFEngine provides they are now faced with the question of "What next?"

Indeed, anybody can throw some flour, eggs, milk and butter into a bowl, mix and bake it. But will it taste good?

This is an exposé of how I have managed my CFEngine repository for more than eight years. This design was used to manage over 1,000 host instances.

This works best if you have an agile infrastructure. Use SmartOS, OpenStack, Amazon EC2 (Disclosure: I work for Amazon), CloudStack or similar.

  • CFEngine 3
  • Agility
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/a-case-study-in-cfengine-layoutMon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0200http://cfengine.com/blog/a-case-study-in-cfengine-layoutMarch 2013 snapshot of CFEngine - get it while it's hot!The March snapshot release of CFEngine Community and Enterprise has just hit our webservers. The releases are called 3.5 Beta1 and 3.1 Beta1, respectively, and just as last month: this is work in progress.

  • configuration management
  • CFEngine 3 Community
  • CFEngine 3
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/march-2013-snapshot-of-cfengine-get-it-while-its-hotMon, 25 Mar 2013 10:04:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/march-2013-snapshot-of-cfengine-get-it-while-its-hotCFEngine is very easy to install - and now so is bootstrapping!CFEngine is very easy to install -- just one package per operating system if you are using one of the pre-compiled packages we provide for the Community or for Enterprise editions.

We wanted to bring an equally effortless experience to the task of starting CFEngine; bootstrapping a client to a policy server.

  • CFEngine 3
  • bootstrap
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-is-very-easy-to-install-and-now-so-is-bootstrappingFri, 22 Mar 2013 00:13:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-is-very-easy-to-install-and-now-so-is-bootstrappingFebruary 2013 snapshot of CFEngine - get it while it's hot!The February snapshot release of CFEngine Community and Enterprise has just hit our webservers. Some good things have happend in the Community release, such as partial policy validation through cf-promises and scope attributes in body classes. On the Enterprise product and Mission Portal, focus has been on hub diagnostics, and on building an open architecture for knowledge management. Get the release while it's hot, but note that this is an alpha release - work in progress, and not suitable for production environments! So fire up your VMs and let us know what you think!

  • Development
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/february-2013-snapshotWed, 27 Feb 2013 14:05:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/february-2013-snapshotUsing Avahi for automatic configuration of CFEngine clients.Hi everyone,

Recently we have been thinking about how to make initial steps with setting up CFEngine easier. One way of making CFEngine easier to set up is to remove the need to manually specify the IP address of the policy hub for bootstrapping a client. We decided to use Zeroconf service discovery implemented in Avahi library. This post will explain how this works.

  • community
  • CFEngine 3 Community
  • bootstrap
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/using-avahi-for-automatic-configuration-of-cfengine-clientsTue, 26 Feb 2013 14:05:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/using-avahi-for-automatic-configuration-of-cfengine-clientsLibutils: our friendly toolboxFor those of you following our development, you might have noticed that after our code split there is a new friend in town: libutils.

The aim of libutils is to be a toolbox of commonly used data structures, algorithms and other handy stuff. Historically we had several implementations of some data structures all over our code, so we decided it was time to start putting all together and make sure we always used the same structures.

  • CFEngine 3 Community
  • Development
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/libutils-our-friendly-toolboxFri, 15 Feb 2013 17:02:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/libutils-our-friendly-toolboxValidating partial and runnable policyOver the past week in CFEngine core dev, some results of refactoring work have come to fruition. We want to make cf-promises a flexible tool for analyzing policy code. Previously, cf-promises required a runnable policy, i.e. a policy that includes a body common control. This made it impractical to use for other policy files than the main file (typically promises.cf), as well as for policy still in development. We want to make it easier for people to use cf-promises while they are developing policy, and to enable the community to integrate with the tool.

  • Development
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/validating-partial-and-runnable-policyThu, 14 Feb 2013 15:37:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/validating-partial-and-runnable-policyWhy automation leads to greatly reduced IT-costsAt CFEngine we frequently meet companies that save millions of dollars annually as result of working with our tools.

In addition to improved productivity and increased quality of service, automation will make your IT-operations more cost effective. Actually, in order to stay competitive, I would argue that highly automated IT-operations is the only way for IT-organizations to meet the agility and cost requirements of today.

  • cio
  • business value
  • roi
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/Why-automation-leads-to-greatly-reduced-IT-costsThu, 07 Feb 2013 18:15:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/Why-automation-leads-to-greatly-reduced-IT-costsBack from FOSDEM 2013 - ImpressionsSoftware Defined Infrastructure becomes the new reality, and we need to make the tools that we have enjoyed for years in software engineering also available to the infrastructure engineers: debugging and linting configuration policies; automated testing of infrastructure code on a unit, system and acceptance level; integration with source control and continuous integration. And lastly, measuring everything we can, and analyzing the data in the context of the model of our system, and of our business goals.

  • Development
  • community
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/fosdem-2013Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:57:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/fosdem-2013January 2013 Release now AvailableToday we released our first monthly release! The January edition of CFEngine Enterprise and Community is now available to those who want to see what we are currently working on. The releases are called 3.1 alpha1 and 3.5 alpha1, respectively - and as the name suggests, this is work in progress.

Most things are not finished, somethings might not work. They are not designed for production environments, but we hope that some of you are curious enough about the contents of the packages to give them a go in a test environment, and tell us what you think!

  • Development
  • continuous release
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/january-2013-release-now-availableWed, 30 Jan 2013 11:16:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/january-2013-release-now-availableMore CFEngine coming your way - every month!When we reflected in our team about what worked and what didn't work so well during 2012, one thing stood out: the changes from release to release are too big, and that makes it bloody hard to test that everything works once all the different moving pieces are put together. "Pah", you might say, "What's the big deal; I'm running continuous delivery and release new software into production every 15 seconds!". We don't think it's very attractive for anyone to look at CFEngine as a rapidly changing and moving piece of technology, but starting with January 30th, we will release a tested snapshot of CFEngine Enterprise and Community every last Wednesday of the month.

  • Development
  • continuous delivery
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/more-cfengine-coming-your-wayMon, 21 Jan 2013 15:56:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/more-cfengine-coming-your-wayWelcome to the CFEngine Development BlogHappy New Year 2013, and welcome to the CFEngine Developer Blog! On posts tagged with Development, the guys and gals working on the CFEngine code will share their thoughts about current challenges, ongoing improvements and completed features. The nature of this information will by definition be technical and at times more interesting for those with a software development background than for system engineers. This will be news from the "bleeding edge" rather than announcements of production-ready features.

  • Development
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/welcome-to-the-cfengine-development-blogFri, 18 Jan 2013 13:41:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/welcome-to-the-cfengine-development-blogCFEngine and the future of monitoringSince writing my earlier post on (Model based monitoring), I have talked to many users who encouraged me to describe CFEngine's simple capabilities in more detail. Although CFEngine is not intended as a traditional monitoring platform, it offers a considerable amount of human-friendly information, with a model that could be a hint of the future. At CFEngine, we like to innovate, and this post offers some hints about how we are thinking.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-and-the-future-of-monitoringFri, 28 Dec 2012 08:52:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-and-the-future-of-monitoringFrom System Administrator to System EngineerAutomation of IT-operations can lead to fantastic productivity gains, increased quality of service and reduced operational costs. But what about the people, and their jobs?

System Administrators will not become obsolete, but the nature of their work often changes in highly automated environments. The ones who adapt typically enter into more proactive roles. The ones who willingly or unwillingly are left behind, end up fighting fires and home made scripts, until they will eventually be replaced. This evolution should not be viewed as a threat, but as an opportunity...

  • business value
  • cio
  • roi
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/from-system-administrator-to-system-engineerMon, 10 Dec 2012 18:43:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/from-system-administrator-to-system-engineerDebunking 5 Myths About Implementing Configuration ManagementThis post originally appeared on Dyn.com, written by Neil Schelly @neilschelly

We’ve recently made some big strides at Dyn in implementing a more modern configuration management platform (CFEngine 3) to replace an internally developed system that wasn’t meeting our needs anymore.

Reading about the options out there inevitably leads you to see comparisons of many tools to fill this need. I found myself also learning about several myths regarding implementing configuration management.

In our case, some of these were the difference between a successful deployment and an abandoned effort.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/debunking-5-myths-about-implementing-configuration-managementWed, 28 Nov 2012 18:09:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/debunking-5-myths-about-implementing-configuration-managementContinuous Configuration Management: the value of 6 billion checks a daySoftware developers know that quality of software projects tend to deteriorate over time unless strong measures are taken to prevent this. Software entropy accelerates once the beginning of “software rot” has been allowed to set in, so the trick is to keep the software as clean as possible at all times.

  • business value
  • cio
  • roi
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/continuous-configuration-management-6-billion-checks-a-dayThu, 15 Nov 2012 20:29:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/continuous-configuration-management-6-billion-checks-a-dayThe Guru is in Session at LISA 2012 LISA'12

Do you want to learn more about CFEngine, and hear about the latest developments, tools, tricks and tips? Please join us for "The Guru is in: CFEngine" at LISA'12, a session where you will hear directly from CFEngine developers, engineers and power users.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/the-guru-is-in-session-at-lisa-2012Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:31:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/the-guru-is-in-session-at-lisa-2012QNAP and Raspberry Pi SupportEarlier this year we made several proof of concepts to demonstrate that CFEngine can run on embedded and mobile devices. We compiled CFEngine for a devkit 8500 board, Android, QNAP and Raspberry Pi.

Due to popular demand we have made the QNAP and Raspberry Pi packages publicly available, free to use for up to 25 nodes. This is a modified version of Enterprise 2.2 compiled for these platforms, please be aware that we do not provide support for these packages. Official versions may be provided at a later point.

Download them at http://cfengine.com/25free

  • Development
  • CFEngine 3
  • system administration
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/qnap-and-raspberry-pi-supportFri, 09 Nov 2012 18:59:00 +0100http://cfengine.com/blog/qnap-and-raspberry-pi-supportCFEngine, virtualization and VMware vSphere 5 (ESXi)In todays environment where words such as virtualization, cloud and agility constantly buzz in our ears, enterprises look for ways to manage their increasingly dynamic infrastructure. The Cloud::Services sketch from the CFEngine Design Center implements a policy to manage virtual machines (VMs) on VMware vSphere 5 (ESXi). With this sketch, CFEngine can clone, start/stop, delete and configure VMs seamlessly alongside your physical infrastructure.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-virtualization-and-vwware-vsphere-5-esxiWed, 29 Aug 2012 06:05:00 +0200http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-virtualization-and-vwware-vsphere-5-esxiUsing Splunk to analyze CFEngine logs0. Why?

Splunk is a very good enterprise search engine, engineered for speed, robustness, and scalability.  CFEngine has search capabilities but without the agility of the Splunk search interface and backend.
Also, in an established Splunk environment or for many other reasons, CFEngine log searching may not be the primary search solution.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/using-splunk-to-analyze-cfengine-logsWed, 18 Jul 2012 16:28:00 +0200http://cfengine.com/blog/using-splunk-to-analyze-cfengine-logsLinuxCon 2012 Presentation by Mark BurgessWe will be holding some sessions at LinuxCon in San Diego this summer and will be very happy to see you there!

We just got a 15% off coupon to give away, but you need to act fast - it is good for the first 10 attendees and then it expires. The code is LFSD12345 - use it when you register for LinuxCon 2012 here.

We wanted to share the abstract of Mark's session.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/linuxcon-2012-presentation-by-mark-burgessFri, 29 Jun 2012 21:05:00 +0200http://cfengine.com/blog/linuxcon-2012-presentation-by-mark-burgessLinuxCon 2012 Presentation by DiegoWe will be holding some sessions at LinuxCon in San Diego this summer and will be very happy to see you there!

We just got a 15% off coupon to give away, but you need to act fast - it is good for the first 10 attendees and then it expires. The code is LFSD12345 - use it when you register for LinuxCon 2012 here.

We wanted to share the abstract of Diego's session.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/linuxcon-2012-presentation-by-diegoFri, 22 Jun 2012 21:05:00 +0200http://cfengine.com/blog/linuxcon-2012-presentation-by-diegoModel-based monitoring with CFEngineThe past year has seen a plethora, one might even say an entire movement, of talks and blog posts under the heading "Monitoring Sucks". Plenty of valid criticisms have been made about the state of the art in monitoring. Back in 1998, I was similarly dissatisfied with the state of the art, and began to ask some basic questions that resulted in CFEngine's present day tools for system monitoring. This article is a reminder of CFEngine's smart, and extremely lightweight tools for de-centralized monitoring. These tools were designed to be adaptable, hands-free and to scale to tens of thousands of hosts, while handling machine-learning pattern matching, and responding automatically to thresholds and anomalies with minimal latency, with or without human intervention.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/model-based-monitoring-with-cfengineSun, 10 Jun 2012 00:12:00 +0200http://cfengine.com/blog/model-based-monitoring-with-cfengineThe CFEngine Design Center: component-based IT infrastructure engineeringWe are proud to announce the immediate availability of the CFEngine Design Center, a community-driven place to exchange CFEngine code, tools and information.

The CFEngine Design Center opens the door to powerful knowledge-based IT infrastructure management without the need to immediately learn a new language. It enables system administrators to "stand in the shoulders of giants" by seamlessly reusing the knowledge and code of peers who have performed similar tasks before, and also to contribute their own knowledge back to the community. It makes it possible to set up a fully-operational CFEngine infrastructure without the need to touch a single line of CFEngine code.

]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-design-center-blogWed, 06 Jun 2012 19:07:00 +0200http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-design-center-blogCFEngine 3 Enterprise 2.2.0 release notesThe CFEngine Enterprise version 2.2.0 release is here, and this release is bringing major customer requests.

  • CFEngine 3
]]>http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-3-enterprise-220-release-notesMon, 04 Jun 2012 21:49:00 +0200http://cfengine.com/blog/cfengine-3-enterprise-220-release-notes