Date: 2023-05-17
Time: 09:00–12:00
Room: DMS 1120
Level: Intermediate
In this tutorial attendees will learn how to use Ansible and SaltStack to administer FreeBSD machines. This tutorial will showcase the different approaches these configuration management tools take and how one can deploy a freebsd-update caching server using either one. Configuration management solutions are able to make a System Administrators life much easier. Attendees will have the confidence that their configuration changes to their FreeBSD machines will be implemented properly every time and not worry about forgetting to do required tasks after performing updates to important services. Reliable configuration allows the Systems Administrator to focus on adding features and saves them time by automating common tasks one is accustomed to when administering BSD machines.
A virtual lab will be setup to allow attendees to try out their local freebsd-update caching server and see how to manage it using configuration management solutions. One can allow the network to cache freebsd-update files so that they are only downloaded the first time they are accessed by one of the FreeBSD hosts on the network and the rest of the FreeBSD hosts will not be required to fetch the files themselves from the internet, instead they’ll use the local server that has temporarily stored the files for them to use. Not only does this reduce bandwidth used it also speeds up the FreeBSD OS update process as the files are on the local lab network and are able to be distributed very quickly to the rest of the FreeBSD hosts.
The following slides have been made available for this session: