Learning MCollective

Part I. Getting Started

We will start this part with an overview of what MCollective does, how it works, and how it can be used to orchestrate change. We’ll discuss how MCollective differs from control systems that loop through each target, and how true parallel execution can benefit your environment.

Sounds a bit boring, huh? Take a moment and enjoy it, because from that point onward, you’re going to be operating live. It’s all hands-on from here.

You’ll perform a real installation of MCollective servers and clients in your environment. No demo system, no tiny configuration that doesn’t match to your needs. You’ll build a working MCollective installation and test it out for your exact needs. You’ll use the client program to make live but nonoperational calls that are specific and unique to your own servers.

I’ll cover network and infrastructure requirements for MCollective and how to confirm that each is configured properly. You’ll get in-depth instruction on common installation problems and learn to fix these and related issues on your own.

You can use configuration-management tools to install and configure MCollective. We’ll introduce a companion Puppet module that is capable of deploying globally with minimal configuration. If you use Puppet or Chef, you’ll install an MCollective agent to control it. Puppet and Chef agents will stop being something that runs periodically and instead become interactive resources you can utilize for immediate change. All this in just Part I ...