5,705
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
mLine 3:
Line 3: − + − + − + − + − + + + Line 37:
Line 39: + + + + + + + + + Line 102:
Line 113: + + + + + + + Line 145:
Line 163: − +
Platform Team/Server Kit/Mace (view source)
Revision as of 05:48, 21 March 2012
, 05:48, 21 March 2012moved Sugar Server Kit/Mace to Platform Team/Server Kit/Mace: Move SSK to HSD
The mace is a tool to ma<strike>c</strike>ke final configuration using source templates. Mace is supposed to help with configuration of services on Server based school servers.
The mace is a tool to ma<strike>c</strike>ke final configuration using source templates. Mace is supposed to help with configuration of services on Server based school servers.
These are the core differences compared with tools like Puppet or Cfengine:
These are the core differences compared with tools like Puppet or Cfengine that makes mace a different niche project:
* mace doesn't provide new metaphors, people need to follow the same configuration syntax for particular services;
* mace provides a simple and straightforward usage workflow, i.e., with tools like Puppet, users need to ''"code"'' a configuration (starting from regular coding in Ruby for missing functions or types, and ending with handling the relationships between all configured resources). It is different in mace; users only need to enter a configuration for the particular service, the rest (like dependencies between configured services) is already coded in mace;
* mace is not intended to be a unified system like Puppet or Cfenginei, it supports only a limited set of services (what Server based solution provides), but does it well, e.g., for iptables, just write rules, and the rest will be done by mace;
* mace doesn't provide new metaphors; people need to follow the standard configuration syntax for any particular service;
* mace doesn't function like a daemon, it just converts configuration sources to the final configuration on the final server, e.g., as a post procedure after installing packages;
* mace is not intended to be a unified system like Puppet or Cfengine; it supports only a limited set of services (of those that the Server based solution provides), but does it well, e.g., for iptables, just write rules, and the rest will be done by mace;
* mace is designed to support intermediate customizing, i.e., the original configuration, provided by an upstream project, might be supplemented (not patched) in the downstream product before deploying to the final users.
* mace doesn't function like a daemon; it just converts configuration sources to the final configuration on the final server, e.g., as a post procedure after installing packages;
* mace is designed to ease support of intermediate customizing, i.e., the original configuration, provided by an upstream project, might be supplemented (not patched) in the downstream product before deploying it to the final users.
* within the [[Sugar Server Kit]] initiative, mace is intended to support, mostly, only the [[Sugar_Server_Kit/Architecture#Dumb_school_servers|Dumb school servers]] functional model.
== Configuration sources ==
== Configuration sources ==
In addition to configuration files, Mace can process files with a {{Code|.env}} suffix. These files contain variable declarations in Bash syntax. The values of these variables might be entered in configuration files in the form of {{Code|@VARIABLE@}}, in which case they will be expanded to real values while applying the configuration.
In addition to configuration files, Mace can process files with a {{Code|.env}} suffix. These files contain variable declarations in Bash syntax. The values of these variables might be entered in configuration files in the form of {{Code|@VARIABLE@}}, in which case they will be expanded to real values while applying the configuration.
In addition to custom variables, there is a list of special ones:
* variables exported by providers;
* {{Code|''<provider>''_SERVICE}} variables with paths to {{Code|/etc/init.d}} services for all providers that support services;
* {{Code|SRC_ROOT}}, path to the root directory with configuration sources;
* {{Code|DST_ROOT}}, path to the root directory to place final configuration;
* {{Code|INCLUDE}}, if this variable is set in {{Code|.env}} files, it will be treated as a colon separated list of directories to search for additional configuration sources; if {{Code|INCLUDE}} directories are not absolute, they will be referenced from the [[Sugar_Server_Kit/sugar-server-templates|sugar-server-templates]] root;
* {{Code|PWD}}, path to the directory where current source configuration file is located.
=== Keywords ===
=== Keywords ===
mace config
mace config
== Troubleshooting ==
* By default, if mace can't start configuring services with new configuration, it falls back to the old configuration. It might be not very useful in case of investigating new configuration errors. To prevent such behavior use {{Code|-R}} command-line argument and try to start affected service manually (with new configuration):
mace apply -R
/etc/init.d/<SERVICE> start
== Testing routines ==
== Testing routines ==
== Getting involved ==
== Getting involved ==
* [http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/newticket?component=sugar-server-kit Report] on bugs.
* [http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/newticket?component=sugar-server-kit Report bugs].
* Read the [http://api.sugarlabs.org/mace/pages/HACKING.html HACKING] file to know how to contribute with code.
* Read the [http://api.sugarlabs.org/mace/pages/HACKING.html HACKING] file to know how to contribute with code.