Re: [Netdisco] Splitting netdisco's roles across hosts

[<pe...@go...>]

On 10/01/2011 10:31, Jethro R Binks wrote:
> As an aside to this thread, I think Oliver once said that he ran Netdisco 
> split across a number of servers: I suppose a DB backend, a WWW front-end, 
> and maybe the cron job submission stuff somewhere else.

Yes, absolutely the case, what I'd call a backend-poller,
web-frontend, and database.

Multiple (or simply separate) backend pollers allows working in line
with security policies where there are separate zones (or VRFs) for
network device management and you don't want a single server sitting
with interfaces in all zones.

Or similarly, where you require public/wider access to the frontend
web server but don't want that server in the network management zone.

Or, in terms of hardware resource allocation, the different
components have different needs (database server could be RAM
intensive whereas the poller might use more CPU cores).

In short - I'm a fan :-)

> Anyway, the point I wanted to make (it has been brewing for many years)         
> was that ... it would      
> be useful (especially for packagers) if the components for front-end and        
> back-end could be offered separately.                                           
>                                                                                 
> netdisco-core, netdisco-frontend, netdisco-backend.

Take a look at the Debian packaging (the "debian/{control,rules}"
files for each describe the necessary components, so the work is
part done):

   http://packages.debian.org/netdisco-

> ... Thinking about it some more, the db part is easily separated from the 
> rest; you essentially just need netdisco/sql, and perhaps more guidance in 
> the install notes on what to do if you are running the db remotely

The README.Debian files in each of the above packages (and the
backend in particular) talk about these steps.

However I'm attracted by what our RPM packager did (sorry I forget
who this was) where there's a bootstrap script which initializes the
DB. In a PHP-push-the-button-install world this is a very nice touch.

> Maybe if netdisco.conf could be split into two config files, one for the 
> WWW-related stuff and one for more backend-y stuff, that would help.  

Along similar lines, I think I do recall niggles such as
requirements of certain SNMP libraries for the web frontend as a
result of loading netdisco.pm, but in reality there's no need.

regards,
oliver.