NAME

       cdist-quickstart - jump in and enjoy cdist

INTRODUCTION

       This tutorial is aimed at people learning cdist and shows typical approaches as well as
       gives an easy start into the world of configuration management.

       This tutorial assumes you are configuring localhost, because it is always available. Just
       replace localhost with your target host for real life usage.

QUICK START - GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY NOW

       For those who just want to configure a system with the cdist configuration management and
       do not need (or want) to understand everything.

       Cdist uses ssh for communication and transportation and usually logs into the target host
       as the root user. So you need to configure the ssh server of the target host to allow root
       logins: Edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config and add one of the following lines:

           # Allow login only via public key
           PermitRootLogin without-password

           # Allow login via password and public key
           PermitRootLogin yes

       As cdist uses ssh intensively, it is recommended to setup authentication with public keys:

           # Generate pubkey pair as a normal user
           ssh-keygen

           # Copy pubkey over to target host
           ssh-copy-id root@localhost

       Have a look at ssh-agent(1) and ssh-add(1) on how to cache the password for your public
       key. Usually it looks like this:

           # Start agent and export variables
           eval `ssh-agent`

           # Add keys (requires password for every identity file)
           ssh-add

       At this point you should be able to ssh root@localhost without re-entering the password.
       If something failed until here, ensure that all steps went successfully and you have read
       and understood the documentation.

       As soon as you are able to login without password to localhost, we can use cdist to
       configure it. You can copy and paste the following code into your shell to get started and
       configure localhost:

           # Get cdist
           # Mirrors can be found on
           # http://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/cdist/install/#index2h4
           git clone git://git.schottelius.org/cdist

           # Create manifest (maps configuration to host(s)
           cd cdist
           echo '__file /etc/cdist-configured' > cdist/conf/manifest/init

           # Configure localhost in verbose mode
           ./bin/cdist config -v localhost

           # Find out that cdist created /etc/cdist-configured
           ls -l /etc/cdist-configured

       That’s it, you’ve successfully used cdist to configure your first host! Continue reading
       the next sections, to understand what you did and how to create a more sophisticated
       configuration.

SEE ALSO

       •   cdist(1)

       •   cdist-tutorial(7)

COPYING

       Copyright (C) 2011-2012 Nico Schottelius. Free use of this software is granted under the
       terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3).

AUTHOR

       Nico Schottelius <nico-cdist--@--schottelius.org>
           Author.

                                            04/07/2016                        CDIST-QUICKSTART(7)