The Register reports that Microsoft has released a new Powershell DSC tool to manage configuration of Linux boxes from the powershell interface. This would be similar to Puppet and friends that are used for this task today.
In yet another sign that Microsoft is a very different animal these days, the company has released PowerShell DSC (desired state configuration) for Linux.
PowerShell DSC is a server configuration tool that has hitherto driven Windows Server boxen. But Microsoft's now decided it has a “commitment to common management of heterogeneous assets in your datacenter or the public cloud”, so has added Linux-wrangling features to the tool.
The new code can cope with CentOS, Debian GNU/Linux, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and Ubuntu Server.
The github site for the project says:
Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) provides a configuration platform built into Windows that is based on open standards. DSC is flexible enough to function reliably and consistently in each stage of the deployment lifecycle (development, test, pre-production, production), as well as during scale-out, which is required in the cloud world.
It looks like this Powershell DSC is actually built with Python and will run on Linux, not just Windows systems with Powershell.
There have been a few signs recently that Microsoft may be becoming a bit more open and less of the MS we knew in the Gates/Ballmer eras. Is this another sign that MS is actually pursuing that trend? Or is it a bid to gain more control over the Linux-sphere? Would any Soylentils think about using this for configuration management over Puppet, Chef, cfengine, or Ansible?
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And while it naturally makes more sense for the company to roll out PowerShell 6.3 rather than a whole new version 7.0, the company explains in a blog post that it's all as part of the efforts to align the versions of all platforms.
Steve Lee, Principal Software Engineer Manager, PowerShell, explains that Microsoft noticed a growing usage pattern on Linux, but not on Windows.
"Windows usage has not been growing as significantly, surprising given that PowerShell was popularized on the Windows platform," Lee explains. [...] The next version of PowerShell will thus be available on Windows, Linux, and macOS, and the company explains it'll be available with LTS (Long Term Servicing) and non-LTS plans.
Also at ZDNet.
Previously: MS Releases Powershell SDC - to Manage Config for.... Linux
Powershell for Linux
Your wget (and curl) is Broken and Should DIE, GitHubbers Tell Microsoft
Geekwire reports that Puppet, the company behind the eponymous configuration management software, is set to expand to Seattle, Sydney and Singapore. The company already has offices in Belfast and Portland.
Chef, perhaps Puppet's great rival in the burgeoning field known as DevOps, is headquartered in Seattle, which sets up an interesting battle for talent over the next few years. A lot of Bay Area companies have opened up offices in Seattle after tiring of the talent wars in California [...]
Related stories:
GitHub Open-Sources Its Tool to Track and Preview Puppet Changes
Better Get Used to It: The Cloud is Becoming Enterprise IT's Home
MS Releases Powershell SDC - to Manage Config for.... Linux
If you have used either or both of Puppet or Chef, how has it worked out for you? If you've tried both, which did you decide to use and what influenced your decision?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2015, @08:50PM
Will it come integrated into systemd?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2015, @08:54PM
8==========D WE HAVE LIFTOFF!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @07:10AM
It IS systemd!!!!
You've just been backdoored by Microsoft!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Refugee from beyond on Monday May 11 2015, @09:00PM
Tying yourself to Microsoft isn't exactly smartest idea you can come up with. Especially if you already use Linux.
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bart9h on Tuesday May 12 2015, @01:37PM
Seems that the target audience for this software is Windows sysadmins that happen to have one or some Linux servers too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2015, @09:29PM
20 min to install
30 sec to delete
gotta love m$
Ice_Dragon: microsoft will always be around
Ice_Dragon: I got news for you, Raede
Ice_Dragon: when the nuclear weapons kill mankind and the cockroaches mutate into giants
Ice_Dragon: they'll be using windows
Ice_Dragon: cockroach windows
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday May 11 2015, @09:35PM
Microsoft has always admitted the existence of other systems and sought to interop with them to the extent it drives sales of their products. From Office on the Mac to .ASP support on Linux/UNIX + Apache when most hosting providers were exclusive *NIX shops. They will support non-microsoft networking protocols until they attain dominance with their own, or embrace and extend Kerberos and LDAP to build Active Directory because they decide they can get away with it. They support Linux VM loads on Azure and contribute the Linux kernel patches to make sure Windows Server runs well on KVM/libvirt because either scenario involves Microsoft product being licensed. None of this is praiseworthy or something to condemn, it is just business.
It is the fruitshop that tends to operate in a totally enclosed ecosystem.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 11 2015, @09:38PM
They support Linux VM loads on Azure and contribute the Linux kernel patches to make sure Windows Server runs well on KVM/libvirt because either scenario involves Microsoft product being licensed. None of this is praiseworthy or something to condemn, it is just business.
Yet there's a bunch of shills who will come out of the woodwork to highly praise MS for "contributing so much code" to the Linux kernel because of those patches.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday May 11 2015, @10:38PM
This is *purely* because of Azure. Of course, if it's from Microsoft and not open source, you'd be a very silly person to install it. Not just because of the traditional lock-in, but because of Microsoft's 'special friends' from three letter agencies. Of course, Azure3 down't support current (or any) open standards either.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday May 12 2015, @12:46AM
I'm not sure who's modding you Flamebait, except perhaps the 'Apple Faithful'.
As long as Microsoft stays within the bounds of the law, you're correct, it is just business. I will add though, that being open to competition and just putting out the best product you can *is* praiseworthy, while merely merely staying within the bounds of the law and doing all you can to subvert your competition *is* worthy of condemnation. Both Microsoft and Apple (and many others) should do better, considering the advantages they have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:32AM
It is I, Anonymous Coward, that doth thus mod jmorris as flamebait, for verily flamebait he be-eth. Law? Do you think the Lords of Microsoft care for the Laws? They can bend the minds of the governments to their will, mostly since the government, particularly the legislative branch, has so little to bend, or what is the same thing, so much that is so easy to bend. And if the justices get in the way? Just wait until a "friendly" executive comes in office (opps, blue dress typo!@) and directs the Department formerly known as Justice to drop charges. So you see, jmorris is flamebait, always flamebait, and can never be anything other than flamebait because either, he is not too bright, or he is intentionally flamebaitish, or he is a Micro$oft shill, and it is within the realm of possibility that he is in all actuality all three!
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Monday May 11 2015, @09:56PM
I have a subversion repository with a headless puppet configuration. All puppet configuration scripts are in version control, and cron jobs apply the scripts. With this setup, I never have to hand edit config files.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Monday May 11 2015, @10:24PM
I have a subversion repository with a headless puppet configuration. All puppet configuration scripts are in version control, and cron jobs apply the scripts.
Yes. we were ALL making do without powershell on linux.
That doesn't make it a bad thing to have, in mixed environments or predominantly windows environments.
With this setup, I never have to hand edit config files.
Because the config files write and edit themselves? I can still see a use-case for tools like powershell for writing and editing and testing them before they go into version control and deployment, even in your scenario.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2015, @10:38PM
You see a use case for powershell? Excuse me? Have you seen the clusterfuck that is powershell?
The idea of DSC is cool heading towards awesome.
Powershell is an excellent example of Microsoft software engineering. It is the CLI equivalent to.. no, wait, it is shit. Complete and utter shit. Some nice concepts, but if you had to script or code with it you would claw your eyes out.
The Microsoft response to the unix shell. Yeesh.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2015, @11:34PM
Batch files
VBScript
Windows Scripting Language
PowerShell
How long till PowerShell is deprecated?
.
Contrast that with bash:
backward-compatible and forward-compatible since 1978.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @12:16AM
Uhh, you can still use all of those.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 12 2015, @12:34AM
Bourne shell (sh) standardized since 1977 without the confusions of Linux.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday May 12 2015, @02:37AM
Batch files still work, and if you were the real gewg_ you'd know that.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:03AM
Did that ever get the && operator?
...or is it still stuck in the dark ages--not even able to do what you could do with any *n?x shell decades ago?
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:30PM
Did that ever get the && operator?
yes, yes it did
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @10:54PM
You see a use case for powershell? Excuse me? Have you seen the clusterfuck that is powershell?
I didn't say "powershell", I said "Tools like powershell" and I stand by that.
The Microsoft response to the unix shell. Yeesh.
Meh... there are things i do like about powershell; and I like it more than, say, AppleScript.
As for the unix shell; it's stuck in the 60s -- there are a lot of things that are harder to do than they really should be in 2015... like work with dates and times, because while text might be universal, but its still a PITA to process compared to more structured data.
I like the unix shell, but there's a lot of things I think we could do better. They got powershell... I guess we got systemd :)
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:17AM
Gross. I set up puppet for a product support test lab containing about 50 boxes between physical hardware and vm machines. It was certainly not the most pleasant thing I've ever done, though I did a lot with our software as well as linux system files, so maybe my perception is skewed.
Still, competitors are never bad. That's what drives innovation. Maybe the MS option won't suck. Maybe it'll drive puppet to become better.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @12:18AM
On *nix, we use puppet, svn and git (migrating to git) to manage configurations.
On switches and routers, we use svn & git w/ rancid to ensure we have a central repository of all configuration changes.
On windows, those guys have chaos. Can't get them to use either svn or git, and apparently group policy has huge holes in what it can manage. Everything is a mess on that side of the house. So, the news here is that windows supports some kind of configuration management at all. Too bad it sounds like it requires that clusterfuck that is powershell.
As for any windows brokenness getting anywhere near our other systems? Not on your life.
But, for shops with folks who "know computers" because they play video games, and for some reason they have something besides windows, then I guess that is MS's market. That and idiot pointy haired bosses telling folks who know better to use this shit.
(Score: 1) by Qlaras on Tuesday May 12 2015, @04:58PM
Microsoft has finally seen the light, and is moving to command-line utilities to manage their servers - it is the only way to reasonably scale. It IS funny to see them finally doing what the various *nixes and BSD's have done for years to decades.
DSC is a homegrown, made-for-Windows equivalent to {Ansible,Chef,Puppet,etc}.
Its still being fleshed out, PowerShell 4.0 included the first version of it...5.0 will have a more-complete setup with the NuGet package manager.
I already have two Puppet stacks at work (unrelated environments) - where DSC will come in handy is on my 200+ Windows Server VMs. My test/deployment environment will be an IIS cluster; it seems to be what most have used for tests and shared info on. (Biggest part is which IIS features need to be installed, along with App Pool & Site configurations - the rest gets pushed out from TFS in our environment)
For others, when you have a 90-95% Windows shop with a handful of Linux boxes, standing up a separate {Ansible,Chef,Puppet,etc} stack and learning that isn't worth it, DSC will fill that gap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @07:56PM
Back in the day... [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @12:36AM
I bet it requires SystemD... or the other way around, it is required BY SystemD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @07:10AM
Not yet.
Not quite yet...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @03:23PM
First they have to re-implement systemd ... in mono.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:07PM
So Miguel's in on this caper too?
(Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Tuesday May 12 2015, @12:38AM
Can't touch this tar baby. Whenever you get involved with Microsoft and their products you will be screwed over. (Red Hat will perhaps be added to that list)
So Microsoft has become more open and progressive? Guess the purpose of that! ;-)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by boltronics on Tuesday May 12 2015, @02:55AM
Would any Soylentils think about using this for configuration management over Puppet, Chef, cfengine, or Ansible?
Firstly, after evaluating all of the options, my workplace opted to use Salt Stack for configuration management.
Secondly, I don't do Windows, and that's my choice. One of the big reasons I work where I do is so I will never have to touch it again.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:27AM
topic: MS Releases Powershell SDC [...]
The Register reports that Microsoft has released a new Powershell DSC tool
I know nobody gives a flying funk after the initials M$ about which one it is but anywho consistency is great.