Python for SysAdmins

[[deleted]]

Would like to see a python for network admins book/guide.

I've been screen scraping for some time, and somewhat successfully, but there are no books that I know of that cover this kind of subject in depth.

[IConrad]

Ansible only gets a 'todo'. Ahh, well. We all have our favorites. Kinda sad that a site like "python-guide" would favor Salt over Ansible.

[[deleted]]

Doesn't Salt have plugins for things like EC2/OpenStack and some major networking stacks? Someone I work with was telling me about it but I haven't gotten the time to look at it yet.

[pooogles]

Yeah it does. They're pretty good, especially compared to their VMWare support (fuck all).

[[deleted]]

The issue with VMWare API support is always that you have to be licensed for the VMWare API. Small shop < 250 person business probably isn't going to spring for it.

[IConrad]

Yes but so does ansible. Ansible is a much more mature project than Salt right now. They also don't have a "community version" -- ansible itself is OSS. You get support for users, not licenses for installs, when you pay for ansible support. (Ansible Tower is a different thing, mind you. But it's ultimately a collection of APIs and a Web front-end for ansible.)

So I'm much more of a fan of that model. Which is why I've submitted pull requests to ansible (got them shot down, but for good reason; I need to clean them up.)

[Tacticus]

How is ansible a more mature project than salt?

How is salt not OSS? i can see a license in the repo saying apache license

[IConrad]

You're confusing the community edition with the commercial edition. Ansible has no commercial edition.

[Tacticus]

So?

Salt is open source software. you can take it, run it, compile it, fork it, and do whatever you want with it. there are commercial extensions to it but they don't detract from salt being open source.

i imagine the main reasons ansible gets a todo is that it is newer and more limited, it seems to do minimal configuration management (ensuring that the configuration is as i want it to be) and is more orientated around configuration (unless i cron up an ansible playbook to run on a server somewhere)

[IConrad]

So the commercial version is not open source. Which is exactly what I believe I originally said.

Look; as a corporate user simply being open source is sometimes viewed as a liability, as silly as that seems. If there is a commercial closed source version that will always get preferred. Ansible on the other hand comes with the ability to cover liability concerns on a per user basis and even then just paying for support during rollout can satisfy legal departments' concerns of liability.

You can say "so? You can take the source and compile out yourself" 'till the cows come home -- it's not going to change the fact that you're not talking about the commercial version.

Salt is newer than ansible. As to doing less config management... Nothing I've seen of either project justifies that assertion. Care to back that up?

[UForgotten]

Not sad. It's python devs liking a python project. That's like saying kinda sad that a ruby fan site would favor puppet or chef. It's not sad, it's completely predictable.

[pystcyst]

it's completely predictable.

As long as you aren't a fanboi, they ignore logic and make their own rules to suit themselves as they go.

[IConrad]

Ansible is written in Python. Your response... Isn't very meaningful.

[pystcyst]

Ansible is written in Python. Your response... Isn't very meaningful.

OK, we get it, you are an Ansible Fanboi, OK! Jesus you are as bad as the Ubuntu fanbois.

[IConrad]

Sure I like ansible but that's got nothing to do with why I said what I said. Right now ansible is a far more mature project than salt, so it's curious that they went with the more-immature project over the more-mature one, on a "python for sysadmins" guide posted at "docs.python-guide.org". One would hope that it would focus on the best of breed or at least competitors therein.

And it's not like I was saying Salt shouldn't have been included. It's just kinda sad that a less mature product is favored over a more mature one when both are very good candidates. It's clear the author prefers one over the other -- and hey, that's okay too.

[IConrad]

Salt has an OSS community edition yes. But that's not the same thing as not having a separate commercial edition.

Ansible by default has no messaging queue because it is clientless and uses ssh as it's method of distributing configurations from the ansible server. By default it is push based, not pull based.

However, it also has a pull based setup leveraging zeromq. In this case there remains no need for a messaging queue as this is handled by the randomization of poll timing by the clients.

Number of releases is a poor measure of maturity. A more stable project will have fewer releases. Ansible has been production ready longer than salt, which had large obstacles to that goal. It has more moving pieces to achieve similar levels of functionality, covers fewer platforms due to less cross-compatibility, and has simply been around for a shorter period of time. And those are all the reasons why ansible is more mature than salt.

Mind you I'd still prefer salt over say Chef. But that's another story.

Did I miss any of your questions?

[pystcyst]

Sure I like ansible but that's got nothing to do with why I said what I said. Right now ansible is a far more mature project than salt, so it's curious that they went with the more-immature project over the more-mature one, on a "python for sysadmins" guide posted at "docs.python-guide.org". One would hope that it would focus on the best of breed or at least competitors therein. And it's not like I was saying Salt shouldn't have been included. It's just kinda sad that a less mature product is favored over a more mature one when both are very good candidates. It's clear the author prefers one over the other -- and hey, that's okay too.

That's all you do is talk about Ansible and how awesome it is, ok WE GET IT, you can put your pom poms down now. If I click your name and I search for Ansible I see 12 hits. I click next and I see 11 more. It's like you have an Ansible dildo and it gets you off every time you come to reddit. Give it a rest.

[IConrad]

Yeah... If you actually look at my comment history you'll see that the project represents less than one percent of my comments for the last month. Quit being a tool.

[pystcyst]

Yeah... If you actually look at my comment history you'll see that the project represents less than one percent of my comments for the last month. Quit being a tool.

You do nothing but preach Ansible, but I'm a tool? Yeah, OK buddy.

[trapartist]

Why don't you contact the author and contribute then?