Re: [SLE] Red Carpet

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Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 00:03:20 -0400 (EDT)
To: suse-linux-e@suse.com

At the risk of extending the length and tone of this thread, I shall reply
with my own experience here.

First, Randall, if you have no problems with the YaST Install and Remove
module, then I suggest you are probably best to continue using it. As
noted here on this lists, others on this list have in fact found some of
its shortcomings inadequate for the management of their own systems.

For my own credentials - I am a Sr. Unix Administrator with over 12 years
experience running linux as well as several commercial Unices, and am
currently responsible for design work on a proof-of-concept project for
linux deployment and centralized management at a large US corporation. I
have experience with several versions of SuSE Linux, in both Professional
and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server editions, and with many other
distributions.

I have previously used Red Hat Network, YaST, yum, and manual methods to
maintain package and patch repositories. I have not used apt on RPM based
systems, but I have used it on Debian-based systems. My company has
chosen to standardize on Zenworks Linux Management (ZLM) (formerly Red
Carpet Enterprise, RCE) for our Linux management needs at this time. I
currently maintain a local ZLM repository, but my comments on the client
side apply equally to the publically available clients from Novell after
their acquisition of Ximian.
stigated exhaustively.

All of the methods listed above save the manual one, including Red Carpet,
are capable of dependancy resolution provided that their repositories
contain all of the necessary RPMs. YaST/YOU is currently included with
all shipping versions of SuSE Pro and SLES, to my knowledge. SLES 9
includes a YaST module to run your own YOU repository, if you so choose.
yum provides a simple method of maintaining its own repository. Red Hat
Network is proprietary to Red Hat and therefore irrelevant to this
conversation. Both RHN and RCE/ZLM currently require purchasing a
closed-source product to manage their repositories. APT repositories are
apparently relatively simple to run, and can also (apparently, as I have
not done it) be used by both the apt and yum tools, if so desired.

Red Carpet consists of several components: rcd (the Red Carpet Daemon)
and some sort of client. There are both command line clients (rug) and
GUI versions (Red Carpet) which both interact with the rcd in order to
acomplish their tasks.

The rcd daemon appears to interact with the rpm database. If rcd is not
started (controlled by an init script, /etc/init.d/rcd, which can be
deactivated from the boot sequence if desired by running insserv -r rcd),
the Red Carpet system does not appear to have any remaining hooks into the
system. In particular, there are no hooks in the kernel which are
required to make it work and no unknown binaries running on a system after
shutting down the rcd daemon.

All the rug/RedCarpet/rcd combination does, basically, is package addition
and removal, including dependancy resolution. If the optional rcd-modules
package has been loaded, it is also possible to run scripts and gather
some information about the client systems from ZLM/Red Carpet server.
With or without the rcd-modules package, rcd listens on port 505 and
communicates with the remote server using XML-RPC over an SSL-encrypted
session. By contrast, YaST and yum do not leave anything running when
they are not actually being used.

For managing client systems without running the repositories myself, my
choices would depend mostly on the quality of the repositories available
to the client, and whether the client runs on all of the distributions
which I happened to have running as cients. If I were running the
repositories also, there are other considerations which come into play, of
course. I won't attempt to go into those here.

My choice at my current employer has obviously been ZLM and rcd. In
another environment, factors might lend themselves to other clients. All
of the clients are capable of managing updates if the repositories which
they use are appropriately managed. Use what works best for you.

For someone who is truly interested in more information about rcd/Red
Carpet, I should note that a google search for '"Red Carpet" rcd' or '"Red
Carpet" rug' - leave the " quotes in - will turn up a mailing list
archive, a public forum at Novell, and a variety of other information. If
you want more information than that about Red Carpet and the other
products, I strongly recommend doing your homework using the web to find
out the details that are most important to you.

Hope this helps someone.

-Randy Dees

<quote who="Randall R Schulz">
> Matt,
>
> On Friday 27 August 2004 18:35, Matthew wrote:
>> > ...
>> >
>> > I'm still not sufficiently motivated to do so. I have no problems
>> > with the YaST Install and Remove module, so I think I'll wait to hear
>> > more from other souls more intrepid than I.
>>
>> What am I? A sales person? I am not trying to motivate you to do
>> *anything*. Why are you asking about Red Carpet if you're not motivated
>> to find out?
>
> What are you? You'd have to tell me.
>
> Anders, who evidently will not explain his position (to me, at least)
> repeatedly advocates Red Carpet, but says little more than "it's better."
> "Just because," apparently.
>
> And I'm asking what I asked: What are the pros, cons and issues
> surrounding the use of Red Carpet in place of or in addition to the YaST
> Install and Remove module. I'm asking for the obvious reason: I want to
> learn other peoples' experience and knowledge in this matter. This list
> is for people to share information, after all.
>
> I'm _not_ motivated to risk the integrity of my system on a few terse
> blandishments. What's wrong with that? Surely you don't find my
> reluctance to jump head-first into using a non-trivial piece of software
> that performs a critical system function without soliciting others'
> experiences to be unreasonable or out-of-line, do you?
>
>
>> > I have a rule: No early-adopter experimentation with the latest and
>> > greatest versions of key software unless I have an explicit need for
>> > something it supplies.
>>
>> Early adopter? Red Carpet has been around for years. Do what you want,
>> thats the Linux way :).
>
> So where are all the Red Carpet users? All I'm looking for is some
> feedback on people's experience with it. So far, almost no one has
> anything to say. And what has been said amounts to "don't worry" (with a
> bit of "it has a nice interface" thrown in). So while Red Carpet may be
> older than dirt, so far it doesn't look to me like it gets much use. If
> that perception is accurate, then it's not necessarily valid to conclude
> that it's reliable. For all I know, it's the best piece of software ever
> written, but I'm looking for some real information on which to base an
> opinion and make a decision about trying it out.
>
>
> Perhaps the fact that I don't have a "hobby" machine (as Anders put it) to
> experiment with makes me an unusual participant here, but that's my
> situation. I have one home desktop that I rely on for everyday computing,
> including my work. I have to be conservative about how I manage and
> maintain it.
>
>
> Randall Schulz
>
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>
>

-- 
Randy Dees
c:  (704) 618-0887
Random Thought:
---------------
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