Add "mind your own business" bcfg2.conf option for APT and YUMng client drivers

[[email protected]…]

Sometimes, especially if you manage workstations, you don't care so much about the exact package composition at the client. You are interested only about a certain set of packages which you want to be there. Never mind the rest.

In that sense, APT and YUMng client drivers are "too curious", they insist on managing the entire package composition.

It would be very useful to have bcfg2.conf option which tells these client drives to care only about the packages which are listed in configuration received from the server and forget about the rest.

I have already prototyped this with APT driver, with following RefreshPackages()

   def RefreshPackages(self):
       self.installed = {}
       desired = [entry.get('name') for struct in self.config for entry in struct if entry.tag == 'Package']
       qcmd = """/usr/bin/dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Version}\t${Status}\n'"""
       packages = self.cmd.run(qcmd)[1]
       for pkg in desired:
           res = self.cmd.run('%s %s' % (qcmd, pkg))
           try:
               version,status = res[1][0].split('\t')
               if status.endswith('ok installed'):
                   self.installed[pkg] = version
           except ValueError, IndexError:
               pass

The result:

• Number of unmanaged entries dropped dramatically (from ~1500 to zero)
• Amount of data reported back to server dropped dramatically
• Considerable speedup in client operation

[solj]

This is actually the main reason for the Packages? plugin. Are you still using Pkgmgr?

[Esa V <…>]

No, I'm not using either. I'm using Bound entries like one below, directly in bundles. They fit just perfectly for our purposes. This is more a client driver issue, even if the server sends just one Package entry, the client driver examines the whole package pile.

<BoundPackage name='lsb-release' version='auto' type='deb'/>

[solj]

Replying to Esa V <[email protected]…>:

No, I'm not using either. I'm using Bound entries like one below, directly in bundles. They fit just perfectly for our purposes. This is more a client driver issue, even if the server sends just one Package entry, the client driver examines the whole package pile.

<BoundPackage name='lsb-release' version='auto' type='deb'/>

Would it not be easier to enable Packages and replace

<BoundPackage name='lsb-release' version='auto' type='deb'/>

with

<Package name='lsb-release'/>

Not only would this be easier to read, you also get the added bonus of the client-side md5sum check for all the packages you have installed.

[Esa V <…>]

Might well be. But the actual point in this ticket is the client driver behavior. Using Packages would not have any effect on that, right?

[solj]

Replying to Esa V <[email protected]…>:

Might well be. But the actual point in this ticket is the client driver behavior. Using Packages would not have any effect on that, right?

I see your point, I would just worry about the case where one of the packages you don't care about is compromised. Although, I guess you could use aide/tripwire or something to monitor that.

[desai]

The "bundle-quick" mode implemented the client tells the client to focus strictly on entries specified in the configuration without complaining about anything else. This gets rid of the large data upload as well. It can be run using the -Q option.

[Richardheef]

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