Is there a Beginner's Guide?

I have looked at various sites for how to get started from scratch.

There are a lot of pieces, but no clear documentation as to the order of the pieces (if it is important) or the necessity/optional-ness of each piece.

Does such a guide exist ? If not, what is the best way to chase down the info ?

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” (Bill Waterson: Calvin & Hobbes)

Yes the documentation is definitely incomplete, but there are a few
attempts at making it easy to jump right in.
Foreman is plugin based so most of it is optional.

Here is documentation though for few of the main components
Foreman (Provisioning) - http://www.theforeman.org/manuals/1.7/index.html
Katello (Package Management) - http://www.katello.org/docs/
Pulp (Package Repository)

Hopefully that can get you started until somebody more experienced pipes up
:slight_smile:
I'm currently reading through this stuff myself.

··· On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 4:22:00 AM UTC+9, LinuxDan wrote: > > I have looked at various sites for how to get started from scratch. > > There are a lot of pieces, but no clear documentation as to the order of > the pieces (if it is important) or the necessity/optional-ness of each > piece. > > Does such a guide exist ? If not, what is the best way to chase down the > info ? > > “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” (Bill Waterson: Calvin & Hobbes) > >

Dan, could you tell us a bit about your use case? That way we can probably
guide you towards a few keywords on what you might need.
As David said, I'd start with the Foreman manual quickstart section and
then figure out if you need other parts or not.

··· On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 7:31 AM, David Somers-Harris < davidkazuhiro@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes the documentation is definitely incomplete, but there are a few
attempts at making it easy to jump right in.
Foreman is plugin based so most of it is optional.

Here is documentation though for few of the main components
Foreman (Provisioning) - http://www.theforeman.org/manuals/1.7/index.html
Katello (Package Management) - http://www.katello.org/docs/
Pulp (Package Repository) -
http://pulp-user-guide.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

Hopefully that can get you started until somebody more experienced pipes
up :slight_smile:
I’m currently reading through this stuff myself.

On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 4:22:00 AM UTC+9, LinuxDan wrote:

I have looked at various sites for how to get started from scratch.

There are a lot of pieces, but no clear documentation as to the order of
the pieces (if it is important) or the necessity/optional-ness of each
piece.

Does such a guide exist ? If not, what is the best way to chase down the
info ?

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” (Bill Waterson: Calvin & Hobbes)


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Daniel Lobato

@elobatoss
blog.daniellobato.me
daniellobato.me

GPG: http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7A92D6DD38D6DE30

My use case is trying to transition from a simple combination of Cobbler and Puppet.

I think I found how to use Pulp to mirror repositories, but I have yet to understand how to bare-metal-provision (cobbler system … ) and how to use the pulp-maintained mirror repos (cobbler repo …) after initial provisioning.

The other potential problem I see is about the smart proxies in Foreman. In my work environment, I have no admin access to services like DHCP and DNS, so I do not know how many such services I will be able to use with Foreman. Using Cobbler, I cannot PXE-boot directly as I cannot set up DHCP with MAC-address reservations. I have to use the create boot-iso's to start the provisioning.

··· > On Dec 26, 2014, at 2:37 AM, Daniel Lobato wrote: > > Dan, could you tell us a bit about your use case? That way we can probably guide you towards a few keywords on what you might need. > As David said, I'd start with the Foreman manual quickstart section and then figure out if you need other parts or not. > >> On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 7:31 AM, David Somers-Harris wrote: >> Yes the documentation is definitely incomplete, but there are a few attempts at making it easy to jump right in. >> Foreman is plugin based so most of it is optional. >> >> Here is documentation though for few of the main components >> Foreman (Provisioning) - http://www.theforeman.org/manuals/1.7/index.html >> Katello (Package Management) - http://www.katello.org/docs/ >> Pulp (Package Repository) - http://pulp-user-guide.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ >> >> Hopefully that can get you started until somebody more experienced pipes up :) >> I'm currently reading through this stuff myself. >> >> >>> On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 4:22:00 AM UTC+9, LinuxDan wrote: >>> I have looked at various sites for how to get started from scratch. >>> >>> There are a lot of pieces, but no clear documentation as to the order of the pieces (if it is important) or the necessity/optional-ness of each piece. >>> >>> Does such a guide exist ? If not, what is the best way to chase down the info ? >>> “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” (Bill Waterson: Calvin & Hobbes) >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Foreman users" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > > -- > Daniel Lobato > > @elobatoss > blog.daniellobato.me > daniellobato.me > > GPG: http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7A92D6DD38D6DE30 > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Foreman users" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Okay, that was helpful! I'll try to point you to some resources from what I
understood:

For the repositories mirroring you can use Katello & Pulp -
http://www.katello.org/
It's a very well thought addition to Foreman, however you have to make sure
to install it when you install Foreman, as it is not possible to plug it in
easily.
I'd recommend you reading through the Content Views and Content Hosts part
of the Katello docs it's probably the way you will use the repos in your
hosts after initial provisioning. -
http://www.katello.org/docs/user_guide/content_views/content_views.html

Smart proxies attach to existing DHCP and DNS infrastructure and yes the
proxy would need admin access over these services to be useful. We
understood this use case a while ago and foreman_bootdisk (a plugin) is
available for this. - https://github.com/theforeman/foreman_bootdisk
With foreman_bootdisk can create boot ISOs in Foreman to provision these
hosts you can't PXE-boot. The installer supports it and there are packages
for it so it should be a matter of just installing a package.

Hope these pointers were useful to you, let us know if you need anything
else!

··· On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Dan White wrote:

My use case is trying to transition from a simple combination of Cobbler
and Puppet.

I think I found how to use Pulp to mirror repositories, but I have yet to
understand how to bare-metal-provision (cobbler system … ) and how to use
the pulp-maintained mirror repos (cobbler repo …) after initial
provisioning.

The other potential problem I see is about the smart proxies in Foreman.
In my work environment, I have no admin access to services like DHCP and
DNS, so I do not know how many such services I will be able to use with
Foreman. Using Cobbler, I cannot PXE-boot directly as I cannot set up DHCP
with MAC-address reservations. I have to use the create boot-iso’s to
start the provisioning.

On Dec 26, 2014, at 2:37 AM, Daniel Lobato elobatocs@gmail.com wrote:

Dan, could you tell us a bit about your use case? That way we can probably
guide you towards a few keywords on what you might need.
As David said, I’d start with the Foreman manual quickstart section and
then figure out if you need other parts or not.

On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 7:31 AM, David Somers-Harris < > davidkazuhiro@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes the documentation is definitely incomplete, but there are a few
attempts at making it easy to jump right in.
Foreman is plugin based so most of it is optional.

Here is documentation though for few of the main components
Foreman (Provisioning) - http://www.theforeman.org/manuals/1.7/index.html
Katello (Package Management) - http://www.katello.org/docs/
Pulp (Package Repository) -
http://pulp-user-guide.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

Hopefully that can get you started until somebody more experienced pipes
up :slight_smile:
I’m currently reading through this stuff myself.

On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 4:22:00 AM UTC+9, LinuxDan wrote:

I have looked at various sites for how to get started from scratch.

There are a lot of pieces, but no clear documentation as to the order of
the pieces (if it is important) or the necessity/optional-ness of each
piece.

Does such a guide exist ? If not, what is the best way to chase down
the info ?

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” (Bill Waterson: Calvin & Hobbes)


You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Foreman users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


Daniel Lobato

@elobatoss
blog.daniellobato.me
daniellobato.me

GPG: http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7A92D6DD38D6DE30


You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Foreman users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Foreman users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


Daniel Lobato

@elobatoss
blog.daniellobato.me
daniellobato.me

GPG: http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7A92D6DD38D6DE30

Many thanks for the details. I will check out all the links given in this thread and report back – with more questions if needed or to report my success.

··· > On Dec 28, 2014, at 4:01 AM, Daniel Lobato wrote: > > Okay, that was helpful! I'll try to point you to some resources from what I understood: > > For the repositories mirroring you can use Katello & Pulp - http://www.katello.org/ > It's a very well thought addition to Foreman, however you have to make sure to install it when you install Foreman, as it is not possible to plug it in easily. > I'd recommend you reading through the Content Views and Content Hosts part of the Katello docs it's probably the way you will use the repos in your hosts after initial provisioning. - http://www.katello.org/docs/user_guide/content_views/content_views.html > > Smart proxies attach to existing DHCP and DNS infrastructure and yes the proxy would need admin access over these services to be useful. We understood this use case a while ago and foreman_bootdisk (a plugin) is available for this. - https://github.com/theforeman/foreman_bootdisk > With foreman_bootdisk can create boot ISOs in Foreman to provision these hosts you can't PXE-boot. The installer supports it and there are packages for it so it should be a matter of just installing a package. > > Hope these pointers were useful to you, let us know if you need anything else! > >> On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Dan White wrote: >> My use case is trying to transition from a simple combination of Cobbler and Puppet. >> >> I think I found how to use Pulp to mirror repositories, but I have yet to understand how to bare-metal-provision (cobbler system ... ) and how to use the pulp-maintained mirror repos (cobbler repo ...) after initial provisioning. >> >> The other potential problem I see is about the smart proxies in Foreman. In my work environment, I have no admin access to services like DHCP and DNS, so I do not know how many such services I will be able to use with Foreman. Using Cobbler, I cannot PXE-boot directly as I cannot set up DHCP with MAC-address reservations. I have to use the create boot-iso's to start the provisioning. >> >>> On Dec 26, 2014, at 2:37 AM, Daniel Lobato wrote: >>> >>> Dan, could you tell us a bit about your use case? That way we can probably guide you towards a few keywords on what you might need. >>> As David said, I'd start with the Foreman manual quickstart section and then figure out if you need other parts or not. >>> >>>> On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 7:31 AM, David Somers-Harris wrote: >>>> Yes the documentation is definitely incomplete, but there are a few attempts at making it easy to jump right in. >>>> Foreman is plugin based so most of it is optional. >>>> >>>> Here is documentation though for few of the main components >>>> Foreman (Provisioning) - http://www.theforeman.org/manuals/1.7/index.html >>>> Katello (Package Management) - http://www.katello.org/docs/ >>>> Pulp (Package Repository) - http://pulp-user-guide.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ >>>> >>>> Hopefully that can get you started until somebody more experienced pipes up :) >>>> I'm currently reading through this stuff myself. >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 4:22:00 AM UTC+9, LinuxDan wrote: >>>>> I have looked at various sites for how to get started from scratch. >>>>> >>>>> There are a lot of pieces, but no clear documentation as to the order of the pieces (if it is important) or the necessity/optional-ness of each piece. >>>>> >>>>> Does such a guide exist ? If not, what is the best way to chase down the info ? >>>>> “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” (Bill Waterson: Calvin & Hobbes) >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Foreman users" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. >>>> To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. >>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Daniel Lobato >>> >>> @elobatoss >>> blog.daniellobato.me >>> daniellobato.me >>> >>> GPG: http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7A92D6DD38D6DE30 >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Foreman users" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Foreman users" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > > -- > Daniel Lobato > > @elobatoss > blog.daniellobato.me > daniellobato.me > > GPG: http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7A92D6DD38D6DE30 > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Foreman users" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

If you can I recommend that you build your own sandbox.

In the past I have been able to have a private segment with a few VMs on
the Companies VMware servers.

At the moment I am using VMware workstation on my home PC and my laptop.

My main environment is my laptop as I can test out scenarios at home before
bringing them to the office.

With my private segment I can do all the DHCP, DNS, PIX-boot I want. Once
you have a stable demo environment you may be able to get better access to
the hosts.

··· On Sunday, December 28, 2014 7:58:17 AM UTC-5, LinuxDan wrote: > > Many thanks for the details. I will check out all the links given in this > thread and report back -- with more questions if needed or to report my > success. > > > On Dec 28, 2014, at 4:01 AM, Daniel Lobato > wrote: > > Okay, that was helpful! I'll try to point you to some resources from what > I understood: > > For the repositories mirroring you can use Katello & Pulp - > http://www.katello.org/ > It's a very well thought addition to Foreman, however you have to make > sure to install it when you install Foreman, as it is not possible to plug > it in easily. > I'd recommend you reading through the Content Views and Content Hosts part > of the Katello docs it's probably the way you will use the repos in your > hosts after initial provisioning. - > http://www.katello.org/docs/user_guide/content_views/content_views.html > > Smart proxies attach to existing DHCP and DNS infrastructure and yes the > proxy would need admin access over these services to be useful. We > understood this use case a while ago and foreman_bootdisk (a plugin) is > available for this. - https://github.com/theforeman/foreman_bootdisk > With foreman_bootdisk can create boot ISOs in Foreman to provision these > hosts you can't PXE-boot. The installer supports it and there are packages > for it so it should be a matter of just installing a package. > > Hope these pointers were useful to you, let us know if you need anything > else! > > On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Dan White > wrote: > >> My use case is trying to transition from a simple combination of Cobbler >> and Puppet. >> >> I think I found how to use Pulp to mirror repositories, but I have yet to >> understand how to bare-metal-provision (cobbler system ... ) and how to use >> the pulp-maintained mirror repos (cobbler repo ...) after initial >> provisioning. >> >> The other potential problem I see is about the smart proxies in Foreman. >> In my work environment, I have no admin access to services like DHCP and >> DNS, so I do not know how many such services I will be able to use with >> Foreman. Using Cobbler, I cannot PXE-boot directly as I cannot set up DHCP >> with MAC-address reservations. I have to use the create boot-iso's to >> start the provisioning. >> >> On Dec 26, 2014, at 2:37 AM, Daniel Lobato > > wrote: >> >> Dan, could you tell us a bit about your use case? That way we can >> probably guide you towards a few keywords on what you might need. >> As David said, I'd start with the Foreman manual quickstart section and >> then figure out if you need other parts or not. >> >> On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 7:31 AM, David Somers-Harris > > wrote: >> >>> Yes the documentation is definitely incomplete, but there are a few >>> attempts at making it easy to jump right in. >>> Foreman is plugin based so most of it is optional. >>> >>> Here is documentation though for few of the main components >>> Foreman (Provisioning) - >>> http://www.theforeman.org/manuals/1.7/index.html >>> Katello (Package Management) - http://www.katello.org/docs/ >>> Pulp (Package Repository) - >>> http://pulp-user-guide.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ >>> >>> Hopefully that can get you started until somebody more experienced pipes >>> up :) >>> I'm currently reading through this stuff myself. >>> >>> >>> On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 4:22:00 AM UTC+9, LinuxDan wrote: >>>> >>>> I have looked at various sites for how to get started from scratch. >>>> >>>> There are a lot of pieces, but no clear documentation as to the order >>>> of the pieces (if it is important) or the necessity/optional-ness of each >>>> piece. >>>> >>>> Does such a guide exist ? If not, what is the best way to chase down >>>> the info ? >>>> >>>> “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” (Bill Waterson: Calvin & Hobbes) >>>> >>>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Foreman users" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to foreman-user...@googlegroups.com . >>> To post to this group, send email to forema...@googlegroups.com >>> . >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Daniel Lobato >> >> @elobatoss >> blog.daniellobato.me >> daniellobato.me >> >> GPG: http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7A92D6DD38D6DE30 >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Foreman users" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to foreman-user...@googlegroups.com . >> To post to this group, send email to forema...@googlegroups.com >> . >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Foreman users" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to foreman-user...@googlegroups.com . >> To post to this group, send email to forema...@googlegroups.com >> . >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > > > -- > Daniel Lobato > > @elobatoss > blog.daniellobato.me > daniellobato.me > > GPG: http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7A92D6DD38D6DE30 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Foreman users" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to foreman-user...@googlegroups.com . > To post to this group, send email to forema...@googlegroups.com > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > >