Verdad

• Verdad is "truth" in Spanish
  • use it to define the "true state" of your network
  • use "Verdad clients" to apply the "true state" to your servers

• Gives you the tools you need to build a comprehensive configuration database
  • multiple inheritance
  • versioning
  • easy data import/export

Architecture

• Keep it Simple!
  • mysql database holds data
  • perl tools control putting data in
  • mod_perl implements a little user interface
  • publish data to Verdad clients via simple HTTP interface

• Verdad is just a place to put data
  • Verdad does not control servers
  • Verdad clients do the heavy lifting by actually making config files based on the data they fetch from Verdad

• Clients "control" the schema
  • Verdad does not enforce a schema on the data

Things Verdad controls at Tellme

• IP addressing (DNS and DHCP)
• Software Deployment
• NTP client and server config
• DNS resolver configuration
• MySQL replication
• SSH access control
• Postfix
• Netsaint configs

Data Format

• A Verdad item is a set of tag/value pairs
• Values are either single strings, or lists of strings

item verdad-slave-tunneled
  comment = "The connection information needed by MySQL on a Verdad slave that's using an SSH tunnel."
  is = verdad-slave
  mysqld-master-host = localhost
  mysqld-master-port = 33060
  gratuitous-list = ( value-1 value-2 )

Availability

• Released under the Artistic license on SourceForge
• Two example clients are available
  • MySQL replication
  • NTP client and server config