Exactly what you're saying. If you need to maintain multiple hosts then use proper tooling, be it puppet, chef, FAI, git, virtualization, or even a homegrown s

Exactly what you're saying. If you need to maintain multiple hosts then use proper tooling, be it puppet, chef, FAI, git, virtualization, or even a homegrown set of bootstrap scripts. Rsync'ing random stuff from one host to another will hardly end well, except for truly one-off stuff that gets closely reviewed during the process. File location and contents vary wildly, even between slightly different [package] versions of the same distribution. Trying to automate that stuff without even looking at what the package manager of the respective hosts has to say is a recipe for disaster. Sure, your script may work today right after you tested it with two near identical RedHat hosts. I promise it will fail badly when you try to run it again 6 months from now. Or rather, it will probably run nearly fine, but bury some interesting surprises for you to find out about later...