Configuration management

This page explains how the configuration works in Safecor.

What is configuration management?

A configuration is a set of parameters and behaviours that can be applied to a specific hardware.

In a fleet of heterogeneous devices, for example tablets and various computers, there will be different sizes of displays, tablets will have a rotated (landscape) display with touchscreen while computers will have a regular (landscape) display. But you might want to rotate the screen differently to have a portrait orientation. Some hardware will need to be disabled for security or operational reasons, particularly PCI devices or buses.

For all these reasons Safecor provides a configuration management system that helps you defines settings specific to a device family or type.

Settings hierarchy

Some of the settings can be defined on the kernel's command line (for an ISO image or network boot) or only in the Topology. The hierarchy rule defines which setting is kept over the others.

When a setting in defined in the Topology and on the command line, the command line value is kept

Device management

The device is identified with the help of the DMI (Desktop Management Interface) API.

Safecor reads and analyzes the DMI information provided by the firmware of the device, and this information can be used to match a configuration.

Defining a configuration

A configuration is defined in the topology.

A specific section can be added in a regular topology file:

"configurations": [
    {
        "name": "Durabook R8",
        "identifier": {
            "sys_vendor": "Durabook",
            "product_name": "R8AA"
        },
        "settings": {
            "gui": {
                "screen": {
                    "rotation": 90
                }
            },
            "pci": {
                "blacklist": "00:0d.0"
            }
        }
    }
]

the field configurations is an array and can be used to define as much configurations as needed.

Identify a product or a unit

All the files located in /sys/class/dmi/id/ on the regular device can be used to identify a device.

The device can be identified with the help of the following DMI fields:

Field	Description
product_name	This is often the model of the device
product_serial	This is the serial number of the device which identifies the type of device
product_sku	This is a SKU that identifies a product, it can be empty
product_uuid	This field should identify a specific unit and can be used to target one unit specifically
sys_vendor	This field identifies the manufacturer of the device

There may be more or less fields in the directory /sys/class/dmi/id/ but you should be able to find a combination that will match a product or a specific unit in your fleet.

The field identifier in the configuration is the place where the device or unit must be identified using the name of a file located in /sys/class/dmi/id/ as the key and the text it contains as the value.

For example, on a Durabook R8 device:

$ cat /sys/class/dmi/id/sys_vendor
Durabook

$ cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name
R8AA

If you want to target this model, create a configuration like this:

{
    "name": "Durabook R8",
    "identifier": {
        "sys_vendor": "Durabook",
        "product_name": "R8AA"
    },
    "settings": { }
}

Nnow if you want to create a configuration for Abraham's device you can do:

{
    "name": "Abraham's Durabook R8",
    "identifier": {
        "sys_vendor": "Durabook",
        "product_name": "R8AA",
        "product_uuid": "f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479"
    },
    "settings": { }
}

Default configuration

If the device running Safecor matches none of the configuration, the default configuration will be applied. The default configuration corresponds to all the settings outside of the section configurations in the topology.