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Show HN: Synapse - Universal API for remote system administration

33 points by raphdg 14y ago

evanprodromou 14y ago
Wow, this looks pretty cool.
dsr_ 14y ago
You don't have to know about yum, apt or whatever package manager your hosts use thanks to synapse-agent's abstraction layer. Except, of course, that a sysadmin who doesn't know this is not a sysadmin. And someone who tries installing the same package across different operating systems is going to be in for a shock when it turns out that they have the same name for different versions, or different names for the same version, or completely different ways of configuring it. This looks neat, but I don't see anything that says they have learned lessons from puppet, bcfg2 and cfengine.
- eschnou 14y ago
  Indeed, the package example is the easiest one to explain but the least useful due to naming issues accross distro. It works however the same for services, users, etc. As you mention, the approach is really similar to the abstraction in the Puppet DSL. But instead of using it to describe a recipe, you use it to remotely manage a host. Obviously you need knowledge of the target system, but at least you can write orchestration scripts that are cross-platform and where the only data changing are package names, path, and content of files.
  - dsr_ 14y ago
    Ok, so what did you folks learn from the other projects in this space? Why is this better than Puppet, bcfg2, or cssh?
    - eschnou 14y ago
      Synapse is not a puppet/chef like configuration management tool, it is used for live management & orchestration. It's in fact much more similar to mcollective and salt, which both innovates from tools like cssh by using a messaging middleware instead of ssh to connect to the target hosts.
    - ominous_prime 14y ago
      Ansible[1] is starting to look really nice. It's kind of a mix between puppet and fabric, handling configuration and orchestration in a single tool. If it didn't mean rewriting all my puppet configs, I'd probably be using it by now (though I've come close a couple times). 1. http://ansible.github.com/ http://ansible.github.com/
jeanpierrelevac 14y ago
Definitively interesting!
stevejabs 14y ago
Are you going to release the source code at http://www.skullbocks.com/ http://www.skullbocks.com/ ?
eslachance 14y ago
There's no mention of it on the video or the page, but it seems safe to presume that there's no support for Windows-based servers? Or am I just missing it?
- raphdg 14y ago
  The Windows support is coming soon, it's in the features pipe-line.
akoumjian 14y ago
I am looking forward to reading more about this. For a slightly different approach (Python + 0MQ) with a very active community, please check out http://saltstack.org/ http://saltstack.org/
jahewson 14y ago
Why not use Puppet or Chef?
- raphdg 14y ago
  See this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4499900 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4499900
bashtoni 14y ago
What makes this better than mcollective? The examples make it look very similar, but written in python.

33 points by raphdg 14y ago

Wow, this looks pretty cool.

dsr_ 14y ago

You don't have to know about yum, apt or whatever package manager your hosts use thanks to synapse-agent's abstraction layer. Except, of course, that a sysadmin who doesn't know this is not a sysadmin. And someone who tries installing the same package across different operating systems is going to be in for a shock when it turns out that they have the same name for different versions, or different names for the same version, or completely different ways of configuring it. This looks neat, but I don't see anything that says they have learned lessons from puppet, bcfg2 and cfengine.

eschnou 14y ago
Indeed, the package example is the easiest one to explain but the least useful due to naming issues accross distro. It works however the same for services, users, etc. As you mention, the approach is really similar to the abstraction in the Puppet DSL. But instead of using it to describe a recipe, you use it to remotely manage a host. Obviously you need knowledge of the target system, but at least you can write orchestration scripts that are cross-platform and where the only data changing are package names, path, and content of files.
- dsr_ 14y ago
  Ok, so what did you folks learn from the other projects in this space? Why is this better than Puppet, bcfg2, or cssh?
  - eschnou 14y ago
    Synapse is not a puppet/chef like configuration management tool, it is used for live management & orchestration. It's in fact much more similar to mcollective and salt, which both innovates from tools like cssh by using a messaging middleware instead of ssh to connect to the target hosts.
  - ominous_prime 14y ago
    Ansible[1] is starting to look really nice. It's kind of a mix between puppet and fabric, handling configuration and orchestration in a single tool. If it didn't mean rewriting all my puppet configs, I'd probably be using it by now (though I've come close a couple times). 1. http://ansible.github.com/ http://ansible.github.com/

jeanpierrelevac 14y ago

Definitively interesting!

stevejabs 14y ago

Are you going to release the source code at http://www.skullbocks.com/ http://www.skullbocks.com/ ?

eslachance 14y ago

There's no mention of it on the video or the page, but it seems safe to presume that there's no support for Windows-based servers? Or am I just missing it?

raphdg 14y ago
The Windows support is coming soon, it's in the features pipe-line.

akoumjian 14y ago

I am looking forward to reading more about this. For a slightly different approach (Python + 0MQ) with a very active community, please check out http://saltstack.org/ http://saltstack.org/

jahewson 14y ago

Why not use Puppet or Chef?

raphdg 14y ago
See this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4499900 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4499900

bashtoni 14y ago

What makes this better than mcollective? The examples make it look very similar, but written in python.