From: bashley101@gmail.com   
      
   On 4/21/24 7:34 AM, Sylvain Robitaille wrote:   
   > On 2024-04-19, The Real Bev wrote:   
   >   
   >> After reading the Wikipedia page I am curious about how CFengine could   
   >> manage upward of a million stations running numerous operating   
   >> systems.  Can you give me any hint how this is done without millions   
   >> of if statements?   
   >   
   > The control "language" (for lack of a better term) consists of   
   > different "stanzas", which are selected by variables set, in some cases   
   > by the agent running on the client system ("this host runs linux"   
   > or "this host runs solaris", etc.), and in others by the sysadmin,   
   > typically by triggering a check of some kind (content of a file,   
   > for example, to say that this host is in "lab A", or that the system   
   > has some particular function).  And then in each stanza, you define   
   > a particular intended state (permissions on some file, existence   
   > of some software package, setting yet another variable to be acted   
   > on at a later stage, etc.) and for some operations, how to achieve   
   > that state if the system lacks it.  (file operations, for example   
   > are already built into cfengine, but package installation isn't).   
   >   
   > This is a (hopefully) simplified explanation, but as you can imagine,   
   > if you organize the stanzas in some way that is intuitive for your   
   > environment, it all becomes relatively easy to manage.  It may take   
   > more than one pass through to organize things in a way that makes   
   > sense.   
   >   
   > I hope that I've helped.   
      
   Very much so, thank you!   
      
      
   --   
   Cheers, Bev   
       "Not everyone can be above average so why   
        shouldn't we be the ones to suck?"   
                 --Anonymous School Board Member   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)