sconfm

Simple CONFiguration Manager

• A brutally simple way to manage system(s) configuration(s)!

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Why?

I really hate YAML and other preprocessing languages and the complexity of a lot of tools like Ansible that use them.

It's not that I can't use them, I frankly am forced to. But I find them quite unelegant and not cool in terms of actually being able to look at config file differences.

• And if I have to version the actual config files to catch errors, I might just directly version the config files properly.

A "stupid edge" approach.

We don't want to install yet another tool on a specific server, but be able to just deploy/restore a specific config.

• The config managment and -versioning is done with git and/or the IDE/editor of choice for the admins.
• No need to setup yet another server just to manage the "slaves".
  • Works with anything one can mount and run git through!

A more flexible and portable approach!

Tools like Ansible, Saltstack, Guix, etc. are all fine and useful - no question about that - but they do require supporting the target systems' OS.

• Usually said Configuration Managment solutions require the ability to if not install their own "agent", at least run / deploy one as a persistent executeable, which necessitates the ability to install, add and run arbitrary code.
• They also tend to require if not root, at least sudo privilegues or at the absolute minimum a local shell.
  • Something that may purposefully be absent in many cases (i.e. shared Webservers & Webhosting/Application Hosting offers).

How?

Config files are stored orderly in a directory.

Using git, one can version and change them.

• Using rsync & git one can backup them into a seperate branch and thus make it easy to backroll changes.
• Using ssh and the authorized keys feature, access control is also versioned.
  • No need to fiddle with secrets or vaults.

Simple hierachy of files:

• configs - configurations
  • homes - $HOME directories
    • $USERs - user's homes to be configured.
  • hosts
    • $FQDNs - the hosts in question
      • configuration files
    • hosts.tsv - lists of the hosts.
  • users - users to be configured
    • users.tsv - the users to be configured.
• scripts - The scripts to acrually manage (backup & deploy) said configs from any machine.
  • bash - bash scripts
    • scripts

Structured approach to configuration.

All configuration files are where they are expected.

• No need to have some configuration file parser, just simple files and changes.

Configuration is as portable as can be.

• All config files are where they are expected.

Backups are a breeze.

• Just make a pull of the git and shove it wherever you feel it's most secure.