Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?
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When does it makes sense to start using automation tools such as ansible, saltstack etc?
Is it when you have enough machines (VMs, containes etc) so the work to automate is less than the work to do the same repetitive things over and over?
Does it make sense for 10, 50, 100 VMs/containers or when?
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Even with one client or server, I'll still use Salt or Ansible.
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I do have a few Salt SLS configurations and Ansible playbooks for deploying chocolatey packages to Windows clients.
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@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Even with one client or server, I'll still use Salt or Ansible.
I agree. I'd use it even with only one.
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I would say once you have a solid skill set, then yes, even with only one machine.
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@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
When does it makes sense to start using automation tools such as ansible, saltstack etc?
Nearly always, IMHO. The real question, I think, should be reversed....
In what scenarios would we want to do something different?
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@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Even with one client or server, I'll still use Salt or Ansible.
Exactly. If you are able to do it, it's just the better approach.
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Alright, if you guys says so I guess I better get around to it.
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.I have a lot of VM hosts and guest to set up as well as a way to do changes and keep everything updated and patched. So I might as well start with it from scratch.
Would it be very hard to write something that could mount an iso using ipmi, power up the server over ipmi, install xenserver, set up networks and storages, then install a few different guest VMs with some different packages?
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@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.
Syntactically yes.
Salt has the simpler architecture, because it is clients reaching the server, not the server reaching the clients.
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@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Would it be very hard to write something that could mount an iso using ipmi, power up the server over ipmi, install xenserver, set up networks and storages, then install a few different guest VMs with some different packages?
Sounds like MaaS.
Teraform is probably the best tool for this.
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@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Alright, if you guys says so I guess I better get around to it.
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.I have a lot of VM hosts and guest to set up as well as a way to do changes and keep everything updated and patched. So I might as well start with it from scratch.
Would it be very hard to dwrite something that could mount an iso using ipmi, power up the server over ipmi, install xenserver, set up networks and storages, then install a few different guest VMs with some different packages?
Ansible has a module that interfaces with iLO and boot from whatever you tell it to. Installing xenserver might be difficult (I've not tried that) but still my last job Ansible built the kickstart for each system and when we PXE booted the boxes were kick-started and Ansible built the rest.
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@scottalanmiller said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Would it be very hard to write something that could mount an iso using ipmi, power up the server over ipmi, install xenserver, set up networks and storages, then install a few different guest VMs with some different packages?
Sounds like MaaS.
Teraform is probably the best tool for this.
It's for setting up our servers we will put in colocation. There will be twice as many as originally planned, so 20 hardware nodes. 8 of them will run bare metal, maybe with containers, and 12 will run xenserver with an estimated 4 to 8 VMs on each.
Some of these will be for production and some for development.I guess I could clone them as well but then we're back to manual operations.
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@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Alright, if you guys says so I guess I better get around to it.
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.I have a lot of VM hosts and guest to set up as well as a way to do changes and keep everything updated and patched. So I might as well start with it from scratch.
Would it be very hard to write something that could mount an iso using ipmi, power up the server over ipmi, install xenserver, set up networks and storages, then install a few different guest VMs with some different packages?
You can probably setup a network installation using pxe to install XenServer.
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@scottalanmiller said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.
Syntactically yes.
Salt has the simpler architecture, because it is clients reaching the server, not the server reaching the clients.
That’s the main thing I like about salt. But damn, if the minion service is hosed for whatever reason can be a real pain.
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@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@scottalanmiller said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.
Syntactically yes.
Salt has the simpler architecture, because it is clients reaching the server, not the server reaching the clients.
That’s the main thing I like about salt. But damn, if the minion service is hosed for whatever reason can be a real pain.
SaltStack can do agentless as well, like Ansible.
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@obsolesce said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@scottalanmiller said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.
Syntactically yes.
Salt has the simpler architecture, because it is clients reaching the server, not the server reaching the clients.
That’s the main thing I like about salt. But damn, if the minion service is hosed for whatever reason can be a real pain.
SaltStack can do agentless as well, like Ansible.
Ansible uses winrm to manage Windows. Can Salt do the same? Because Salt agentless uses SSH, so I would need to setup ssh server on Windows.
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/ssh/index.html -
@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@obsolesce said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@scottalanmiller said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.
Syntactically yes.
Salt has the simpler architecture, because it is clients reaching the server, not the server reaching the clients.
That’s the main thing I like about salt. But damn, if the minion service is hosed for whatever reason can be a real pain.
SaltStack can do agentless as well, like Ansible.
Ansible uses winrm to manage Windows. Can Salt do the same? Because Salt agentless uses SSH, so I would need to setup ssh server on Windows.
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/ssh/index.htmlWhy would you want to do that, though? The agent is the key reason to be on Salt in the first place.
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If you don't want the agent, why not use Ansible?
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@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@obsolesce said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@scottalanmiller said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.
Syntactically yes.
Salt has the simpler architecture, because it is clients reaching the server, not the server reaching the clients.
That’s the main thing I like about salt. But damn, if the minion service is hosed for whatever reason can be a real pain.
SaltStack can do agentless as well, like Ansible.
Ansible uses winrm to manage Windows. Can Salt do the same? Because Salt agentless uses SSH, so I would need to setup ssh server on Windows.
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/ssh/index.htmlOh för Windows no. Definitely use the agent with windows it's way more secure.
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@scottalanmiller said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@obsolesce said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@black3dynamite said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@scottalanmiller said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
@pete-s said in Automation with Ansible, Salt etc - at what point?:
Ansible seems to be the least complicated to get started with so I guess that'll be as good as anything.
Syntactically yes.
Salt has the simpler architecture, because it is clients reaching the server, not the server reaching the clients.
That’s the main thing I like about salt. But damn, if the minion service is hosed for whatever reason can be a real pain.
SaltStack can do agentless as well, like Ansible.
Ansible uses winrm to manage Windows. Can Salt do the same? Because Salt agentless uses SSH, so I would need to setup ssh server on Windows.
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/ssh/index.htmlWhy would you want to do that, though? The agent is the key reason to be on Salt in the first place.
I'm all good with using the agent. But until I figured out the problem I'm having the agent on my Windows machines, Ansible will be used.
