6 ms·

There is also Ansible [1] which is written in Python and connects to servers using SSH (combined with sudo if needed). This means you don't need to install anyt

There is also Ansible [1] which is written in Python and connects to servers using SSH (combined with sudo if needed). This means you don't need to install anything on the servers you're managing, since most distributions have Python >= 2.4 included. For more details see the requirements page [2]. [1] http://ansible.cc/ http://ansible.cc/ [2] http://ansible.cc/docs/gettingstarted.html#requirements http://ansible.cc/docs/gettingstarted.html#requirements

stevekemp 14y ago
And my own tool, this time in Perl, which is thoroughly documented here: http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/slaughter/guide/ http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/slaughter/guide/
X-Istence 14y ago
There is also Fabric [1] to allow management of remote servers using Python scripts. [1] http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.5/ http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.5/
- mercurial 14y ago
  Fabric is a deployment tool, which makes it useful in many cases where something like Salt would be overkill, but is definitely not in the same category.
- lukes386 14y ago
  Also cuisine[0], a more fully featured configuration management tools built on top of Fabric's lower level functions. [0]: https://github.com/sebastien/cuisine https://github.com/sebastien/cuisine
buster 14y ago
And it can also use zeromq ;)
vsh426 14y ago
I like its syntax too, its simple to understand and model[1]. [1]https://github.com/ansible/ansible/tree/devel/examples/playbooks https://github.com/ansible/ansible/tree/devel/examples/playb...
StavrosK 14y ago
Can someone who has used both chime in? I've used ansible a bit and like it, but I've never heard of Salt before.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- crdoconnor 14y ago
  I'm hoping for this too. Especially somebody who has used both exhaustively. At first glance the architecture of both seems to be pretty sensible, clean, minimal and good in all the ways that puppet isn't. I half heartedly picked salt based upon the following: * More commits in github. * More pull requests in github. * Main website is ranked higher by alexa. However, after using salt for a short while, I ran into a couple of problems (no mercurial state, no ability to specify versions when using a pip state), which ansible seemed to be able to handle. So, I don't know... salt seems to be more popular. A bit. That's all I can tell.
  - scott_w 14y ago
    Salt does have support for Mercurial through the hg state: http://docs.saltstack.org/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.states.hg.html#module-salt.states.hg http://docs.saltstack.org/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.stat... It's also pretty easy to extend and the team who maintain Salt are really friendly and accepting of patches/pull requests.
  - mpdehaan2 14y ago
    Ansible is moving at a pretty good clip too. We do strongly encourage squash commits so I wouldn't go by counts alone, but pick what tool you like to use most and that best fits your needs, and your style, and what you want to do with it.
    - crdoconnor 14y ago
      Well, that's the problem...both look good to me. Similar style, technologies and philosophy behind both. I'd really appreciate a deeper comparison, though - especially if you feel that there are certain areas/circumstances where ansible may shine over salt.
ch0wn 14y ago
I love Ansible. After having used puppet and chef at the company I work for, everyone was thrilled about how easy and boiler-plate free Ansible is. Chef is great for bigger architectures, but if your goal is to provision a limited set of servers and document it's configuration in a readable format, Ansible is truly fantastic.
- mpdehaan2 14y ago
  Thanks! BTW, I'm not sure limited applies. There are several setups with thousands of nodes and users doing some pretty complex multi-tier orchestration magic (N-tier, load balancers, monitoring outage windows, Jenkins, all integrated, etc). And you've got ansible-pull for mega-large scale if you want.
  - nine_k 14y ago
    The thread starter meant, AFAICT, that Ansible scales down nicely. If you have 3-4 boxes, maybe 0MQ is overkill, and even running a a Chef client constantly is overkill.
    - ch0wn 14y ago
      Exactly. Having to install chef and all it's dependencies to install nginx and a few config files in the end feels really wasteful. With ansible, there are zero server-side dependencies.
pekk 14y ago
What's misleading in these requirements is that the "Python 2.6+" spec implies support for Python 3, which the Ansible authors have actually said they won't support for ideological reasons. It would be more accurate to write "2.6/2.7".
- mpdehaan2 14y ago
  Not ideological reasons but more so pragmatism. But sure 2.X series. And 2.4+ nodes can be managed. Once Python 3 is the thing everywhere I'm sure we'll have compliance. Ditto with, say, OpenStack which is also holding off. You kind of treat them as two different languages to a degree, if you still want to support things like RHEL 5 (2.4), you have to.
rasur 14y ago
There's also cdist which is python and shell-script based - does not even need python on the target machine, only ssh and a posix shell. check it out: http://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/cdist/ http://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/cdist/ disclaimer: I work with the author, but not actually on the cdist codebase (not enough to brag about, anyway)
rektide 14y ago
Ansible has various connection modes between the client and the server. SSH is the default, but the stock release also including a "fireball" transport that uses a ZeroMQ daemon to dispatch incoming command requests.

stevekemp 14y ago

And my own tool, this time in Perl, which is thoroughly documented here: http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/slaughter/guide/ http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/slaughter/guide/

X-Istence 14y ago

There is also Fabric [1] to allow management of remote servers using Python scripts. [1] http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.5/ http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.5/

mercurial 14y ago
Fabric is a deployment tool, which makes it useful in many cases where something like Salt would be overkill, but is definitely not in the same category.
lukes386 14y ago
Also cuisine[0], a more fully featured configuration management tools built on top of Fabric's lower level functions. [0]: https://github.com/sebastien/cuisine https://github.com/sebastien/cuisine

buster 14y ago

And it can also use zeromq ;)

vsh426 14y ago

I like its syntax too, its simple to understand and model[1]. [1]https://github.com/ansible/ansible/tree/devel/examples/playbooks https://github.com/ansible/ansible/tree/devel/examples/playb...

StavrosK 14y ago

Can someone who has used both chime in? I've used ansible a bit and like it, but I've never heard of Salt before.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
crdoconnor 14y ago
I'm hoping for this too. Especially somebody who has used both exhaustively. At first glance the architecture of both seems to be pretty sensible, clean, minimal and good in all the ways that puppet isn't. I half heartedly picked salt based upon the following: * More commits in github. * More pull requests in github. * Main website is ranked higher by alexa. However, after using salt for a short while, I ran into a couple of problems (no mercurial state, no ability to specify versions when using a pip state), which ansible seemed to be able to handle. So, I don't know... salt seems to be more popular. A bit. That's all I can tell.
- scott_w 14y ago
  Salt does have support for Mercurial through the hg state: http://docs.saltstack.org/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.states.hg.html#module-salt.states.hg http://docs.saltstack.org/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.stat... It's also pretty easy to extend and the team who maintain Salt are really friendly and accepting of patches/pull requests.
- mpdehaan2 14y ago
  Ansible is moving at a pretty good clip too. We do strongly encourage squash commits so I wouldn't go by counts alone, but pick what tool you like to use most and that best fits your needs, and your style, and what you want to do with it.
  - crdoconnor 14y ago
    Well, that's the problem...both look good to me. Similar style, technologies and philosophy behind both. I'd really appreciate a deeper comparison, though - especially if you feel that there are certain areas/circumstances where ansible may shine over salt.

ch0wn 14y ago

I love Ansible. After having used puppet and chef at the company I work for, everyone was thrilled about how easy and boiler-plate free Ansible is. Chef is great for bigger architectures, but if your goal is to provision a limited set of servers and document it's configuration in a readable format, Ansible is truly fantastic.

mpdehaan2 14y ago
Thanks! BTW, I'm not sure limited applies. There are several setups with thousands of nodes and users doing some pretty complex multi-tier orchestration magic (N-tier, load balancers, monitoring outage windows, Jenkins, all integrated, etc). And you've got ansible-pull for mega-large scale if you want.
- nine_k 14y ago
  The thread starter meant, AFAICT, that Ansible scales down nicely. If you have 3-4 boxes, maybe 0MQ is overkill, and even running a a Chef client constantly is overkill.
  - ch0wn 14y ago
    Exactly. Having to install chef and all it's dependencies to install nginx and a few config files in the end feels really wasteful. With ansible, there are zero server-side dependencies.

pekk 14y ago

What's misleading in these requirements is that the "Python 2.6+" spec implies support for Python 3, which the Ansible authors have actually said they won't support for ideological reasons. It would be more accurate to write "2.6/2.7".

mpdehaan2 14y ago
Not ideological reasons but more so pragmatism. But sure 2.X series. And 2.4+ nodes can be managed. Once Python 3 is the thing everywhere I'm sure we'll have compliance. Ditto with, say, OpenStack which is also holding off. You kind of treat them as two different languages to a degree, if you still want to support things like RHEL 5 (2.4), you have to.

rasur 14y ago

There's also cdist which is python and shell-script based - does not even need python on the target machine, only ssh and a posix shell. check it out: http://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/cdist/ http://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/cdist/ disclaimer: I work with the author, but not actually on the cdist codebase (not enough to brag about, anyway)

rektide 14y ago

Ansible has various connection modes between the client and the server. SSH is the default, but the stock release also including a "fireball" transport that uses a ZeroMQ daemon to dispatch incoming command requests.