Software Configuration Management Puns

I'm looking for a software recommendation and my DuckDuckGo skills aren't finding anything. I have a desktop, a laptop, and a Raspberry Pi running Linux plus an Android phone that I sync files between. I sync Vim configs, .bashrc files, themes, Git settings, window manager configs, and other plain-text files.

Functionality I'd like:

• Able to sync on all devices, some, or just one
• Can set text to find & replace when applying to a specific device
• Will comment out specific lines identified by trailing comments when applying to a specific device

Do you know of any open-source software I could use? I'm not looking for a complex, enterprise-level solution. I came across Ansible and cdist in my searches but am not familiar with either. Currently, I use a custom Python script that manually copies files, replaces text matching regex, and looks for certain flags to comment out specific lines.

I know GPO's suck for software deployments and uninstalls. We would like to use a program that pushes out software and removes any blacklisted software. What is everyones take? We are a labtech shop but for some reason labtech doesn't have the basic functionality of removing blacklisted software. Would Ansible work for this? I know it can push out software deployments but can it uninstall software as well? IS ansible the best solution (cost vs performance) or is there a better way to do it. We like open source, even though we deal mainly in Windows.

TLDR: Tooling that can help store and compare configuration between environments, for software that we don't write.

For a particular application that I support, we have 5 environments(Dev, GISDev, QA, Train, Prod). Configuration is data in a Microsoft SQL database, across many tables. And registry keys. Across several servers. This is not software that we develop. It is a large public safety suite.

I'm hoping something exists for getting this information into version control. So we can see what changed, when. Whether it was applied to each environment.

I'm prepared to start building something if I have to. But I feel that this thing might already exist, and I just can't find it online.

I've written a blog post with more details here: http://rdelainey.blogspot.com/2020/06/software-configuration-management-part-1.html

Edit: Concrete example
The system tracks rural fire departments. A possible configuration change is:
Add TinyTownFD:

• Add agency record
• Add station record
• Add personell records
• Add equipment (fire trucks etc.)
• Add to mobile software (new IIS site, with xml configs and registry keys)
• Add GIS data (.map file(binary), ply(text), ArcGIS data)

This all gets added to development. Then GISDev. The QA so it can be tested. Then into prod and training. None of the environments experience a restart of servers or workstations, with the exception of the new IIS site.

The way it is now, we don't have a realistic way to track what changed, where, and how far through the environments it is.

Reaching out to see if anyone is using or has used an NCCM (network change configuration management) product called ' Restorepoint ' www.restorepoint.com or has any other recommendations on NCCM products.

What does everyone use for Package/Software management in their environment? Are you using the PackageManagement resource in DSC or some other tool like Chocolatey to manage things like software distribution and upgrades, compliance, versioning, etc? Or a combination? I've seen DSC used in combination with a few other tools successfully as well. I have not been able to get a good pulse on what is industry standard or best practice in this regard.

Ive got this weird issues with Configuration Manager, starting with 2107 I can no longer install an Operating System from the Software Center client on a workstation, OSD fails to carry on after the step 'Setup Windows and Configuration Manager' I ran a test on a workstation that still had an older version of Software Center installed from Configuration manager 2103 and did not have this issue. I can boot to PXE and image an endpoint with no issues.

I am a bit stuck on this one so any suggestions are welcome, luckily since my team can still image workstations by PXE booting the impact has been minimal.

Are Software Configuration Management tools and processes practical for use with the OUTPUT of "off the shelf" applications where the work output are binary files (INDD,ZIP), flat files (XML), or db entries?

From what I understand SCM is typically used for Systems, Servers, and Software configured in a desired state. I'm interested in managing the output of a multi-step / multi-discipline workflow to ensure that the work product conforms to a known standard.

Workflow that keeps getting messed up (at a High Level):

• Designer creates an Indesign File (output is *.INDD)
• Data Team creates a Database or schema that will eventually be merged with INDD (output is sql,csv,txt,.xls, etc...)
• Logic Team adds content via an INDD plugin to connect content objects to Data objects. They can work in an Indesign UI, an ISE, or write XML directly in an editor like VSCode. (work product is XML in a proprietary schema)
• Output Team configures the settings for final output in a Web Based UI (also accessible via API). These settings are saved as a "Job" in DB (output in XML in DB)
• Web Team connects "Job" with the Logic Objects to Web Objects (Check boxes, Input Box, multi-select lists, Javascript) in order to configure the product for customer interaction on a website.

Over the last few months, we continue to make mistakes in one of the above steps. We're missing the ability to check our work against a known standard. With this application, the XML and DB entries are not "surfaced" for the typical user. I'm looking for a way to collect and manage the output of the workflow in a way that we can check the output (run compare or diffs or something) of a new job against a previous known good standard. Any Suggestions?

Thanks for reading.

I googled a lot today and only found the log file the client site. (DataTransferservice.log; CAS.log ; AppEnforce.log)

try to find out if there is any log file i can track the status when i force software to specific computer and can view the log file from the server site.

I have tried remote to the end user PC with psexec or from the file explorer, but if the system is not on ,then i would not be able to check the client log file from there.

Pls advise

I'm sure this has been stated here in other threads, but I thought this may prevent a few headaches.

The default detection rule of checking for an updated ClickToRun version is not sufficient detection of a successful Office 365 install.

https://preview.redd.it/dbmmli2bze541.png?width=609&format=png&auto=webp&s=23ea9ad5196e69fb6601d0e1a9ed41e92b5dc92d

Click to run can install/update successfully when Office itself does not. I typically add a check against the version number of the Outlook executable as well since all Office installs in our org have Outlook.

https://preview.redd.it/k3sankrwze541.png?width=609&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6302d785f28b17d97618e2f222577b4cb26b078

https://preview.redd.it/tdbe5kwyze541.png?width=632&format=png&auto=webp&s=70581d58becb9415ac62b7a023946319c52d1ec6

Hey guys,

So,I am working on an interesting project to change our ServiceNow Software Request/Install workflow to include Azure AD joined devices as the company is starting to move to modern device management. The requirement is basically for the device owner to be able to fetch his (Autopilot provisioned) AAD joined device in a software installation request form, and subsequently have the device added to an Azure AD group (synced from On-Prem AD) . We already SCCM Collections created to query those group memberships, in future Intune these groups will be assigned applications created in Intune.

My idea is to use the Microsoft Graph Explorer to query via the Graph REST API to Get Devices from Azure AD and save them to a table which would then be ingested by ServiceNow.

To add devices to an Azure AD group I am thinking of using Azure Functions and Graph.

Any thoughts? Anybody worked on a similar integration?

I am hoping to find a solution to delivering software and patches to roughly 50 computers.

We are trying to lock down the environment as much as possible and minimize the requirements for IT to get involved.

I am hoping to find a solution where I can deploy programs to each computer in the environment at the same time. Update software for all of them(Java updates, minecraft updates, or whatever!).

One section of the network is lab computers, where in a perfect scenario would all be identical. I could add apply configurations to all of these lab computers at one time. If I wanted a desktop icon, I could add it to all kind of idea.

The computers are currently a mixture of Windows 7 and 10. It is a domain environment.

Hi guys and gals,

for a work project I'm trying to figure out what's a good way to handle different configurations / environments in .NET Core projects.

The default you get when you scaffold an app is the usage of different appSettings.<ENV>.json files per environment. That's currently what we are still using.

However as the app grew and many different other apps were created and other tenants were added in the ecosystem it has become increasingly difficult to manage all of this through the appSettings files. On top of that we are hosting the apps inside of Azure App Service where we manage some environment variables inside the configuration section.

A main problem for us is, that we have different "configuration blocks" that are shared between the same environment and tenant for different applications, e.g. we have 4 applications which all have this configuration:

"Storage": {
    "ConnectionString": "...",
    "Containers": {
       "images": "xyz-images",
       "files": "xyz-files"
    }
}

As you can see, we have to be extremly careful when changing these shared configurations since it's easy to miss one.

We already had a look at Azure App Configuration but this just seems to be slightly better alternative to the "Configuration" section inside the App Service because every value need to be provided as Key-Value pairs. (The other features that it provides are nice to have but not really important to us)

So my question is, is there a good way of handling all these configuration things, preferably a (even paid) service which integrates well into .NET Core?

Hello,

I am looking into a means of installing software, maintaining the software versions and managing configurations across 300+ Windows 7/2008 R2/2012 R2 machines.

I've looked into Puppet, Chef and Powershell DSC, but they all seem to be one piece of the puzzle I'm trying to solve.

I would prefer that the software/stack be free and/or open source. Running the master server on Linux/Red Hat would be optimal. We don't need a configuration GUI (web management could be useful, for some people, in the future) as we're not afraid of a terminal.

Pretty much open to anything as I'm just now looking into the best method that will be usable in years to come.

Thank you!

I do a lot with Linux, and I find often times that I want the same configuration on different distros. For example, I always want my user steelcowboy with the shell zsh and the program sl installed. However, I feel like this is too manual -- I'm certain there exists a configuration management tool that will allow me to "pull" certain configurations from some server, e.g. create the steelcowboy user, change the shell to zsh, clone my dotfiles, and symlink them to their appropriate places in my home folder. I think Ansible may be able to do this, but I'm not entirely sure if there is a better program out there for this. Any thoughts?

Hey /r/networking ,

I'm trying to find a piece of software that can be used as a configuration repository. Specifically for IPPhones. Does anyone know of any decent products (doesnt have to be free or anything).

Thanks in advanced!

A quick Google did not yield any substantial results. Any one have any idea which configuration management software is more widely used?

At my job we use puppet.

https://preview.redd.it/m7kv0d5wr3b81.png?width=535&format=png&auto=webp&s=5dfa244e8e28e0541aa27a6dc1a0ca27e00a88c0