[Discuss] Patch/Server management software

[cra at WPI.EDU (Chuck Anderson)]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 02:30:35PM -0400, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> I've got about 30 Linux servers (RHEL 5.9). I looked at Puppet. No
> one in our organization was using it, and it is only free for 10
> notes, and I don't want to go through the additional paperwork to
> buy it

While there is a Puppet Enterprise version with commercial support
which does cost money and has a 10 node limit before paying up, the
non-Enterprise version of Puppet is open source and free to use
without paying anyone as long as you don't need commercial support.
There are also a few dashboard front-ends, like Puppet Dashboard and
The Foreman.  We are using the latter with 30 nodes or so.

> I currently use 2 tools
> 1. RHN Network Satellite. This keeps track of all the hosts I have
> registered with it, and the patch status. This does not help with
> CentOS hosts.

RHN costs money.