Python data services for Racktables.
This package is intended to, ultimately, be a two-way interface to:
- use data from Racktables to create different kinds of configuration files, and
- use third-party applications to pump data into Racktables (such as facter)
Currently this heavily relies on the work of Ian Bettinger from which I borrow both, the PHP-based Racktables-API and the corresponding Python module to consume the data.
What you will get is a well documented, Python-dictionary based way of creating files via the Cheetah templating engine. This by itself is sufficient to create e.g.
- Puppet node definitions
- Cobbler system registrations
- Nagios / Icinga configurations
Those templates are supplied as examples how to use both, the templating engine and the definitions to create the files needed to run the service(s).
pyRackDS is fully customizable and I've spent enough time documenting the iterations for you to extend it. Need information about the asset tag? Just add it to the tree … I thought about making the content of the tree configurable -- but given the expected audience I decided against it. Hacking a couple of lines in Python will get you there goal anyway.
Just clone the repository. It's all there, including examples how to use the templating engine. There are 3 dictionary trees:
- allHosts
- allNetworks
- allTags
A detailled description with example data will be made available soon.
To activate a template, you need 2 things:
- the template (surprise) (ending in .tmpl in the templates.d directory)
- a definition (surprise!) (ending in .cfg in the definitions.d directory)
The definition is mainly there to some more flexibility in the way you can create files. It'll give you the option to specify
- a target directory with the variable outputdir (such as /etc/puppet/manifests/nodes)
- a file extension with the variable extension (such as .pp)
- burst mode (what?) with the variable burst
This is tricky. And the name might be confusing - but it works for me. I wanted to not only be able to run through the template with all the trees at once, but for each object in a specific tree as well. This gives you the ability to create one file per host, per network, per tag (you get the idea). Currently available burst modes are:
- none (default) (available dictionaries: allHosts, allNetworks, allTags)
- hosts (available dictionary: host)
- networks (available dictionary: network)
- tags (available dictionary: tag)
- tftp (available dictionary: iface)
For burst mode none, the output file will be named like the template, with the ending specified in the definition (mytemplate.tmpl with mytemplate.cfg will create mytemplate.extension). For all other burst methods, the files will be named like the subelement-name followed by the extension. For hosts, this means you get:
- hostname1.pp
- hostname2.pp
- hostname3.pp
The definition uses the default Python ConfigParser module and therefore looks like an ini-style configuration:
[definition]
outputdir = /var/tmp/puppet/
extension = .pp
burst = hosts
The configuration option extension is optional (aka not used) for burst methode tftp
pyRackDS only needs some minor configuration, thus, basically, the API URL plus username and password. It's stored in the conf directory and named main.cfg:
[main]
apiurl = "http://racktables/api.php"
username = admin
password = mypassword
[tags]
puppet_parent = puppet
cobbler_parent = cobbler
The two additional configurations are specific to the main purpose - configuration management. You need to specify the parent tag names for puppet and cobbler tags.
The puppet parent tag is for assigning one or multiple puppet classes to a node.
The cobbler tag is to assign a cobbler profile. At least that's how I implemented it. Change it as you like - as I said - it's easily customizable and should ideally serve whatever use-case you need.
Copyright (c) 2013 Thomas Uhde
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