4 ms·

While I often see "Puppet vs Chef", I never see Bcfg2 mentioned. Is its low mindshare related to its quality, it's exclusion from the set of Ruby-based config m

by kbd 15y ago

While I often see "Puppet vs Chef", I never see Bcfg2 mentioned. Is its low mindshare related to its quality, it's exclusion from the set of Ruby-based config management tools, its origin in the government space, or its terrible name?

agj 15y ago
It's probably the XML. Not only is Bcfg2's explicit configuration structure unpleasant to work with, the heart of it is in XML. I tried to use Bcfg2 and was easily put off by the required structure. The fact that Bcfg2 stems from the science/math community was actually the only thing that kept from overlooking it completely.
nstielau 15y ago
bcfg2 works well. It aims toward 100% fully managed servers (i.e. package dependency management, full /etc management) more than Chef/Puppet (but other than DoD/banking, 100% management isn't worth it). Other reasons I prefer Chef are 1) solo mode, 2) more dynamic recipes with ruby 3) more out-of-the-box resources (dirs, files, templates, users, etc)
Goladus 15y ago
Main reasons for me: Client-server model Insufficient online documentation for what seems to be a verbose and somewhat limited configuration language. The XML is a minor turnoff but for me it's more a question of what the language is doing. Eg: <Package name='openssh-client'/> <Package name='openssh-server'/> <Package name='emacs'/> <Package name='curl'/> <Package name='rsync'/> In puppet, you define a list of packages and then install them with one declaration or do any number of other things with that same list.
vvpan 15y ago
I honestly have not a single clue about Puppet or Chef, but the company I work for uses bcfg2. All of the SAs hate it with a passion. We have written so much code around it to make it usable that it could probably compare with amount of code in bcfg2 (well not really, but it's a lot).

4 ms·

While I often see "Puppet vs Chef", I never see Bcfg2 mentioned. Is its low mindshare related to its quality, it's exclusion from the set of Ruby-based config m

by kbd 15y ago

agj 15y ago
It's probably the XML. Not only is Bcfg2's explicit configuration structure unpleasant to work with, the heart of it is in XML. I tried to use Bcfg2 and was easily put off by the required structure. The fact that Bcfg2 stems from the science/math community was actually the only thing that kept from overlooking it completely.
nstielau 15y ago
bcfg2 works well. It aims toward 100% fully managed servers (i.e. package dependency management, full /etc management) more than Chef/Puppet (but other than DoD/banking, 100% management isn't worth it). Other reasons I prefer Chef are 1) solo mode, 2) more dynamic recipes with ruby 3) more out-of-the-box resources (dirs, files, templates, users, etc)
Goladus 15y ago
Main reasons for me: Client-server model Insufficient online documentation for what seems to be a verbose and somewhat limited configuration language. The XML is a minor turnoff but for me it's more a question of what the language is doing. Eg: <Package name='openssh-client'/> <Package name='openssh-server'/> <Package name='emacs'/> <Package name='curl'/> <Package name='rsync'/> In puppet, you define a list of packages and then install them with one declaration or do any number of other things with that same list.
vvpan 15y ago
I honestly have not a single clue about Puppet or Chef, but the company I work for uses bcfg2. All of the SAs hate it with a passion. We have written so much code around it to make it usable that it could probably compare with amount of code in bcfg2 (well not really, but it's a lot).