Configuration management: Netdirector with Ubuntu 9/04 (64bit)

" Research time ..."
I was almost ready to deploy puppet when I realized that puppet does not have any GUI interface. Well there is one puppetshow but I started to test it and I noticed that it is still in development. So I decided to check if there are another tools to do configuration management and I found Netdirector. My first impression was very good because they have a pretty good website and they offer commercial services.Moreover, I noticed that the application is java based for server and client. Here I show you how to make a quick installation and how to deploy the agent.

First let get the binary for Linux  (32 or 64 bit) . My case is 64 bit.


# wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/netdirector/files/GPL%20NetDirector%20Server%20Manager/3.2.3/netdirector.tar.bz2/download

Uncompress the file.

# tar jxvf netdirector.tar.bz2

Make sure you have all the required packages installed.

# apt-get install sun-java6-jre postgresql libpg-java

You can notice that I am installing postgresql database because the default installation support this database. If you want to use MySQL you would have to research a little bit so you can attached netdirector to you MySQL database.

#cd netdirector/netdirector/dists/netdirector/main/binary-amd64

Install the package.
# dpkg -i netdirector_3.2.2+tomcat_5.5.27-psql7-all.deb

Now you can access the application on http://serverip:8080/netdirector
user admin
pass admin

Do not forget to create an user and role. The GUI for users contains more info and you can create group of servers.

Installing the netdirector agent (Client)

Get the binary file.
# wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/netdirector/files/NetDirector%20Server%20Agent/Netdirector%20Agent%203.1%20Stable/netdirectoragent-3.1-linux-installer.bin/download

Now if you try to install the binary and you are using 64bit Ubuntu, nothing is going to happen. The reason is that the binary requires some 32bit libraries. To avoid this problem install the following package.

#apt-get install ia32-libs


Then install the package using text mode and follow instructions.

# ./netdirectoragent-3.1-linux-installer.bin --mode text


After installing the agent you can go to the web interface and add the server.

Enjoy it ...