Request for input - New Foreman Youtube series

Gwmngilfen · March 4, 2015, 11:35am

Hi all,

A few months ago, I realised that much of our screencast material is
significantly out of date. Much of it dates from the ~1.2 era, and
many things have now changed. I want to try and rectify that (at least
for a while, this stuff dates so fast…).

I'm proposing to record a new series of screencasts, focussing
(initially) on the new user, and then branching out into more advanced
areas. The aim is to build a collection of videos that together show
Foreman in it's best light, and give people a head start on using it.
I've been doing some research and have acquired a nice new studio mic,
and I have been experimenting with Audacity, OBS, and Kdenlive for the
recording and postprocessing, so hopefully it should look and sound
pretty good.

There will also be a blogpost to accompany each episode. This allows
us to have a place where people can follow along by text (cut'n'paste
is difficult from a video :P), and also we can embed video links to
specifc parts of the video in each part of the blogpost (why watch the
whole thing if you're only interested in part 2 that starts at
5min45s?). I'm aiming for easy-to-consume chunks of content, probably
in the region of 15min per episode. This also helps keep the length of
the blogpost to a manageable level.

Currently, I have sufficient content for the first few episodes. I'd
like the first 4 to cover the absolute basics; a "Foreman Beginner's
Guide" if you will. The contents look roughly like this:

1 - Introduction, assumptions/architecture, running the installer,
re-running to enable dhcp/dns)
2 - Provisioning: (hostgroups, operatingsystems, domains, subnet,
templates etc). Build a few hosts.
3 - Puppet: (basic module import/applying to hosts), class params,
overrides, etc
4 - Virtualization: pick a couple of CRs (libvirt & something
cloud-based, probably openstack)

I have slightly more detailed plans for those episodes, but in the
interest of this not becoming a monster email, I'll just show the plan
for episode 1:

···

--- Intro/premise: Purpose of the series Architecture assumptions Foreman 1.8 Using clean CentOS 6 box (RPM has the largest share according to the recent survey) Mention Deb is very similar to set up Network Single subnet (192.168.x.x based), full TFTP/DNS/DHCP control to Foreman Foreman Architecture Installer Why do we have an installer? "It's just puppet!" - it's not a binary blob installer, and -n (for noop ) is useful Configure repos, keys etc and install the installer Set fqdn, mention how important that is Run installer (speed up in post-processing) UI, first look Use Setup plugin for DNS/DHCP Rerun installer using suggested installer command Wrap up, mention whats in episode 2 ---

The Foreman 1.8 note is important; there are major networking changes
in 1.8 that will obsolete any videos made with 1.7 in that area (such
as in episode 2). As such, I’m waiting until at least the first RCs
are cut, and might well wait until 1.8 is officially out before I
record these. We’ll see how the schedule goes.

So, how can you help? Firstly, any feedback is welcome, especially
with regard to what other episodes should be made after the first
four. I can definitely see space for some tips’n’tricks content, and
episodes for notable plugins. Let me know what you want to see!

In addtion, I’ve only dabbled in this level of video recording before,
so if anyone has ideas about other things that can be done to help,
please do speak up. I’m not sure what can be easily split up, workload
wise, but at the least, there’s defining the content of each episode,
writing/proof-reading the posts, reviewing the videos, and maybe even
test-driving the content. I’m sure there’s other stuff too.

Thanks in advance to anyone to can help out - hopefully we can make
this a good resource for new users

Cheers,
Greg

Bryan_Kearney · March 4, 2015, 3:32pm

Provisioning seems like a big topic. Does it make sense to combine 2, 3,
and 4 into a single "concepts overview" and then more focus driven:

a. Provisioning Images on OpenStack
b. Provisioning Build based and Images on Ovirt.
c. Discovering hosts, and re-provisioning with Discovery plugins
d. Enabling Operators using the bootiso (and perhaps rbac)

That way the presentations are solution based, rather than technology based?

– bk

···

On 03/04/2015 06:35 AM, Greg Sutcliffe wrote: > Hi all, > > A few months ago, I realised that much of our screencast material is > significantly out of date. Much of it dates from the ~1.2 era, and > many things have now changed. I want to try and rectify that (at least > for a while, this stuff dates so fast...). > > I'm proposing to record a new series of screencasts, focussing > (initially) on the new user, and then branching out into more advanced > areas. The aim is to build a collection of videos that together show > Foreman in it's best light, and give people a head start on using it. > I've been doing some research and have acquired a nice new studio mic, > and I have been experimenting with Audacity, OBS, and Kdenlive for the > recording and postprocessing, so hopefully it should look and sound > pretty good. > > There will also be a blogpost to accompany each episode. This allows > us to have a place where people can follow along by text (cut'n'paste > is difficult from a video :P), and also we can embed video links to > specifc parts of the video in each part of the blogpost (why watch the > whole thing if you're only interested in part 2 that starts at > 5min45s?). I'm aiming for easy-to-consume chunks of content, probably > in the region of 15min per episode. This also helps keep the length of > the blogpost to a manageable level. > > Currently, I have sufficient content for the first few episodes. I'd > like the first 4 to cover the absolute basics; a "Foreman Beginner's > Guide" if you will. The contents look roughly like this: > > 1 - Introduction, assumptions/architecture, running the installer, > re-running to enable dhcp/dns) > 2 - Provisioning: (hostgroups, operatingsystems, domains, subnet, > templates etc). Build a few hosts. > 3 - Puppet: (basic module import/applying to hosts), class params, > overrides, etc > 4 - Virtualization: pick a couple of CRs (libvirt & something > cloud-based, probably openstack) >

Bryan_Kearney · March 4, 2015, 3:33pm

e. Bursting your on premise cloud into EC2

Buzzwords

– bk

···

On 03/04/2015 10:32 AM, Bryan Kearney wrote: > > > On 03/04/2015 06:35 AM, Greg Sutcliffe wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> A few months ago, I realised that much of our screencast material is >> significantly out of date. Much of it dates from the ~1.2 era, and >> many things have now changed. I want to try and rectify that (at least >> for a while, this stuff dates so fast...). >> >> I'm proposing to record a new series of screencasts, focussing >> (initially) on the new user, and then branching out into more advanced >> areas. The aim is to build a collection of videos that together show >> Foreman in it's best light, and give people a head start on using it. >> I've been doing some research and have acquired a nice new studio mic, >> and I have been experimenting with Audacity, OBS, and Kdenlive for the >> recording and postprocessing, so hopefully it should look and sound >> pretty good. >> >> There will also be a blogpost to accompany each episode. This allows >> us to have a place where people can follow along by text (cut'n'paste >> is difficult from a video :P), and also we can embed video links to >> specifc parts of the video in each part of the blogpost (why watch the >> whole thing if you're only interested in part 2 that starts at >> 5min45s?). I'm aiming for easy-to-consume chunks of content, probably >> in the region of 15min per episode. This also helps keep the length of >> the blogpost to a manageable level. >> >> Currently, I have sufficient content for the first few episodes. I'd >> like the first 4 to cover the absolute basics; a "Foreman Beginner's >> Guide" if you will. The contents look roughly like this: >> >> 1 - Introduction, assumptions/architecture, running the installer, >> re-running to enable dhcp/dns) >> 2 - Provisioning: (hostgroups, operatingsystems, domains, subnet, >> templates etc). Build a few hosts. >> 3 - Puppet: (basic module import/applying to hosts), class params, >> overrides, etc >> 4 - Virtualization: pick a couple of CRs (libvirt & something >> cloud-based, probably openstack) >> > > > Provisioning seems like a big topic. Does it make sense to combine 2, 3, > and 4 into a single "concepts overview" and then more focus driven: > > a. Provisioning Images on OpenStack > b. Provisioning Build based and Images on Ovirt. > c. Discovering hosts, and re-provisioning with Discovery plugins > d. Enabling Operators using the bootiso (and perhaps rbac)

Joop · March 4, 2015, 2:19pm

> Hi all,
>
> A few months ago, I realised that much of our screencast material is
> significantly out of date. Much of it dates from the ~1.2 era, and
> many things have now changed. I want to try and rectify that (at least
> for a while, this stuff dates so fast…).
Great to see some new well structured content.

> 1 - Introduction, assumptions/architecture, running the installer,
> re-running to enable dhcp/dns)
> 2 - Provisioning: (hostgroups, operatingsystems, domains, subnet,
> templates etc). Build a few hosts.
Don't forget config groups and maybe explain what the difference,
strong/weakpoints are between config groups and host groups.
Use case examples?

Joop

···

On 4-3-2015 12:35, Greg Sutcliffe wrote:

Gwmngilfen · March 4, 2015, 3:46pm

> Provisioning seems like a big topic. Does it make sense to combine 2, 3, and
> 4 into a single "concepts overview" and then more focus driven:

It's generally hard to focus on concepts without sounding like a
marketing video. What content would the accompanying blogpost have for
people to cut'n'paste into their terminals?

> a. Provisioning Images on OpenStack
> b. Provisioning Build based and Images on Ovirt.
> c. Discovering hosts, and re-provisioning with Discovery plugins

I already have a Discovery episode on my hit list (I kinda implied it
when I said "notable plugins" :P)

> d. Enabling Operators using the bootiso (and perhaps rbac)

More plugin episode suggestions are welcome - this is a good one.

> That way the presentations are solution based, rather than technology based?

Overall, I prefer the idea of giving people the basics - with the
possible exception of the TFTP component, all the provisioning
workflows need the same things - operatingsystems, templates, proxies,
etc. Given that the Foreman Installer will give you a working PXE
stack out of the box, I might as well start with bare metal and bring
in the compute resources later.

I definitely want to cover the things you've listed, but I can stop
repeating myself if they all start with "So, building on the
provisioning we did in Episode 2…" instead of "lets spend 10 mins
discussing provisioning again". Bear in mind that I would like to see
the first few episodes be taken together. While the later ones
(particularly plugins) can be standalone, I'm working on the idea that
these first few videos will be used in sequence for new users to get a
fully working setup, with all the bells and whistles. That means I can
rely on all the entities I created in Episode 2 still being present in
Episode 4 (virtualization), saving considerable time.

All that being said, I can be outvoted. Speak up for your preferences, users!

···

On 4 March 2015 at 15:32, Bryan Kearney wrote:

lzap · March 4, 2015, 4:43pm

This is great news, today I was linking Dom's provisioning video on
Foreman 1.1. Time flies.

Be sure to export the screen with low framerate, it looks like 5 FPS is
enough to have a decent size/quality.

To record an example you can use this:

github.com

lzap/bin-public/blob/master/recordwindow

#!/bin/bash

NAME=screencast-$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)
FPS=10
THREADS=7

echo "Click the window to capture and get ready!"

tmpfile=/tmp/screengrab.tmp.$$
trap 'touch $tmpfile; rm -f $tmpfile' 0

xwininfo > $tmpfile 2>/dev/null
left=$(grep 'Absolute upper-left X:' $tmpfile | awk '{print $4}');
top=$(grep 'Absolute upper-left Y:' $tmpfile | awk '{print $4}');
width=$(grep 'Width:' $tmpfile | awk '{print $2}');
height=$(grep 'Height:' $tmpfile | awk '{print $2}');
geom="-geometry ${width}x${height}+${left}+${top}"
echo "Geometry: ${geom}"
size="${width}x${height}"
pos="${left},${top}"

This file has been truncated. show original

Modify the FPS to see the difference. For casting of terminals/web sites
it is far enough

···

-- Later, Lukas #lzap Zapletal

lzap · March 4, 2015, 4:46pm

> Provisioning seems like a big topic. Does it make sense to combine 2, 3, and
> 4 into a single "concepts overview" and then more focus driven:

Other idea - use these diagrams to explain the workflow:

https://github.com/theforeman/theforeman.org/pull/333/files

Send me your comments if you want me to do some changes.

···

-- Later, Lukas #lzap Zapletal

Bryan_Kearney · March 4, 2015, 3:54pm

I understand your point… the feedback I hear on docs lately is "dont
tell me what to do, tell me how to solve a problem". So, i tried to
forumalte them as (1) probelms and (2) clickbait (The sysadmin tried to
provision on EC2, and you will never believe what happened next!!)

Having said that, any format will be a great addition for folks to use…
so anything you do is a +1.

— bk

···

On 03/04/2015 10:46 AM, Greg Sutcliffe wrote: > On 4 March 2015 at 15:32, Bryan Kearney wrote: >> >Provisioning seems like a big topic. Does it make sense to combine 2, 3, and >> >4 into a single "concepts overview" and then more focus driven: > It's generally hard to focus on concepts without sounding like a > marketing video. What content would the accompanying blogpost have for > people to cut'n'paste into their terminals?:) > >> >a. Provisioning Images on OpenStack >> >b. Provisioning Build based and Images on Ovirt. >> >c. Discovering hosts, and re-provisioning with Discovery plugins > I already have a Discovery episode on my hit list (I kinda implied it > when I said "notable plugins" :P) > >> >d. Enabling Operators using the bootiso (and perhaps rbac) > More plugin episode suggestions are welcome - this is a good one. > >> >That way the presentations are solution based, rather than technology based? > Overall, I prefer the idea of giving people the basics - with the > possible exception of the TFTP component, all the provisioning > workflows need the same things - operatingsystems, templates, proxies, > etc. Given that the Foreman Installer will give you a working PXE > stack out of the box, I might as well start with bare metal and bring > in the compute resources later. > > I definitely want to cover the things you've listed, but I can stop > repeating myself if they all start with "So, building on the > provisioning we did in Episode 2...." instead of "lets spend 10 mins > discussing provisioning again". Bear in mind that I would like to see > the first few episodes be taken together. While the later ones > (particularly plugins) can be standalone, I'm working on the idea that > these first few videos will be used in sequence for new users to get a > fully working setup, with all the bells and whistles. That means I can > rely on all the entities I created in Episode 2 still being present in > Episode 4 (virtualization), saving considerable time. > > All that being said, I can be outvoted. Speak up for your preferences, users!:)

Gwmngilfen · March 4, 2015, 2:56pm

>> Hi all,
>>
>> A few months ago, I realised that much of our screencast material is
>> significantly out of date. Much of it dates from the ~1.2 era, and
>> many things have now changed. I want to try and rectify that (at least
>> for a while, this stuff dates so fast…).
> Great to see some new well structured content.

Thanks!

>> 1 - Introduction, assumptions/architecture, running the installer,
>> re-running to enable dhcp/dns)
>> 2 - Provisioning: (hostgroups, operatingsystems, domains, subnet,
>> templates etc). Build a few hosts.
> Don't forget config groups and maybe explain what the difference,
> strong/weakpoints are between config groups and host groups.
> Use case examples?

Hostgroups here will just be for the purposes of storing "defaults"
when provisioning a set of hosts. I'll probably touch briefly on
config groups in episode 3 - I'm not planning on doing any puppet in
episode 2. Depening on how long basic puppet takes, we may have to
move config groups (and a wider discussion of roles/profiles etc) into
it's own episode.

Greg

···

On 4 March 2015 at 14:19, jvandewege wrote: > On 4-3-2015 12:35, Greg Sutcliffe wrote:

Joop · March 4, 2015, 3:00pm

Ok. Another one that comes to mind: environments in theforeman and
puppet. How to best use them, same kind of use case scenario as HG/CG.

Documention on Theforeman is nice but is the kind of documentation to
get things going but its not about how do you use all those nice
features to get something going for certain use cases. (Wish english was
my native language, trying to convey a thought but it seems I'm rambling
along, sorry)

Joop

···

On 4-3-2015 15:56, Greg Sutcliffe wrote: > On 4 March 2015 at 14:19, jvandewege wrote: >> On 4-3-2015 12:35, Greg Sutcliffe wrote: >>> Hi all, >>> >>> A few months ago, I realised that much of our screencast material is >>> significantly out of date. Much of it dates from the ~1.2 era, and >>> many things have now changed. I want to try and rectify that (at least >>> for a while, this stuff dates so fast...). >> Great to see some new well structured content. > Thanks! > >>> 1 - Introduction, assumptions/architecture, running the installer, >>> re-running to enable dhcp/dns) >>> 2 - Provisioning: (hostgroups, operatingsystems, domains, subnet, >>> templates etc). Build a few hosts. >> Don't forget config groups and maybe explain what the difference, >> strong/weakpoints are between config groups and host groups. >> Use case examples? > Hostgroups here will just be for the purposes of storing "defaults" > when provisioning a set of hosts. I'll probably touch briefly on > config groups in episode 3 - I'm not planning on doing any puppet in > episode 2. Depening on how long basic puppet takes, we may have to > move config groups (and a wider discussion of roles/profiles etc) into > it's own episode. > > Greg >

Gwmngilfen · March 4, 2015, 4:34pm

> I understand your point… the feedback I hear on docs lately is "dont tell
> me what to do, tell me how to solve a problem". So, i tried to forumalte
> them as (1) probelms and (2) clickbait (The sysadmin tried to provision on
> EC2, and you will never believe what happened next!!)

Fair enough. I'm hoping we'll gather feedback as go about what other
content to feature, so if we don't go into enough detail, the
community can ask for a video on a particular feature/workflow/usecase

> Having said that, any format will be a great addition for folks to use… so
> anything you do is a +1.

Thanks!

···

On 4 March 2015 at 15:54, Bryan Kearney wrote:

lzap · March 4, 2015, 4:44pm

> Don't forget config groups and maybe explain what the difference,
> strong/weakpoints are between config groups and host groups.

Host group provisioning would be nice too, although it's a fragile area

···

-- Later, Lukas #lzap Zapletal

dLobatog · March 4, 2015, 5:51pm

Just curious, is the Youtube channel the only place to put this, do we
want another section in the docs…? I just don't want people to Google
for things you do in the videos A transcript / blog post would help
so much as you said.
I'd gladly help with a new section "Screencasts" under media if needed.

One note if you find it helpful: I often run into issues about
specific compute resources, so info on 'this is how to setup
provisioning on openstack', 'this is vmware', 'this is gce' even
though kind of repetitive might be more effective than just doing
Libvirt and saying 'this is how you provision compute resources'

Again, if you need any help with anything at all holler at me

···

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 6:46 PM, Lukas Zapletal wrote: >> Provisioning seems like a big topic. Does it make sense to combine 2, 3, and >> 4 into a single "concepts overview" and then more focus driven: > > Other idea - use these diagrams to explain the workflow: > > https://github.com/theforeman/theforeman.org/pull/333/files > > Send me your comments if you want me to do some changes. > > -- > Later, > Lukas #lzap Zapletal > > -- > 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

Gwmngilfen · March 4, 2015, 6:05pm

> Just curious, is the Youtube channel the only place to put this, do we
> want another section in the docs…? I just don't want people to Google
> for things you do in the videos A transcript / blog post would help
> so much as you said.

Agreed, thats one of the purposes of the blogposts (as well as
enabling people to follow the series via RSS :P)

> I'd gladly help with a new section "Screencasts" under media if needed.

That could work. I do think our media page needs some love as it takes
so long to load. Maybe some pagination or something, but thats for
another topic, I suspect

> One note if you find it helpful: I often run into issues about
> specific compute resources, so info on 'this is how to setup
> provisioning on openstack', 'this is vmware', 'this is gce' even
> though kind of repetitive might be more effective than just doing
> Libvirt and saying 'this is how you provision compute resources'

Sure, thats good feedback. I'm certainly not planning to only cover
libvirt - I'm hoping to cover the basics of provisioning in ep2, the
core of virtualizaion (using libvirt and probably openstack to show
how the UIs change) for ep4, and then we can do some really specific
episodes as we feel they're needed.

> Again, if you need any help with anything at all holler at me

Will do. I'm already thinking that there will be episodes on stuff I'm
not familiar with (you mentioned GCE there, which I've never used). So
we may need to do guest episodes, or some pre-recording scripting &
training for some material

Greg

···

On 4 March 2015 at 17:51, Daniel Lobato wrote: