1.4 - System Configuration Management

Abstract

This chapter appraises the art of system and network configuration, which has come a long way from its humble roots in scripting of manual system administration. System configuration management is the process of maintaining the function of computer networks as holistic entities, in alignment with some previously determined policy. This policy describes how systems should behave and it is translated into a low-level configuration, informally defined as the contents of a number of specific files contained within each computer system. A typical system to be managed consists of a central-processing unit, hard disk, and associated peripherals, including network card, video card, etc. Depending upon the system, many of these components may actually be contained on a single computer board. A system typically starts its life with no operating system installed, often called “bare metal”. Configuration management is easy if one has access to unlimited hardware, and can encapsulate each distinct service on a separate machine. The complexities of configuration management arise from the need to combine or compose distinct and changing needs while utilizing limited amounts of hardware. The exact boundary between “system configuration management” andregular “system administration” is unclear, but there seems to be a solid distinction between the two at the point at which the overall configuration of a network of systems is being managed as an entity, rather than managing individual machines that contain distinct and unrelated configurations.