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Desired State Configuration for Linux

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Article from ADMIN 32/2016

By Thomas Wiefel

The combination of Open Management Infrastructure standards and the performance of Windows PowerShell opens new perspectives on heterogeneous networks, making PowerShell a realistic option as a management console for Unix and Linux.

The central idea behind the Desired State Configuration (DSC) concept introduced in PowerShell 4 is that systems configure themselves relative to a desired state. The nodes to be managed either pull centralized scripts, or the desired settings are pushed to the nodes at defined intervals. The administrator can choose between push or pull mode. An SMB share or a web server can act as the distributor of the defined resources.

The large number of available resources for the filesystem, registry, server roles, and so on makes for useful deployment options in client and server administration. In a Windows environment, the required infrastructure is set up quickly. After installing the Windows Management Framework 4 [1], included in Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1, you already have the tools in place. PowerShell responds with version number 4.0 to $PSVersionTable, which means you have the required constructs for creating your own configurations: configuration, node, resource. Moreover, the Windows Remote Management (WinRM) service is up to date, which is a requirement for remotely controlling the target systems.

In other words, everything is set up for a homogeneous Windows environment – but what about Unix or Linux servers? Are the benefits of declarative administration ruled out? The good news is no, although you will need to do a little bit of preparatory work that you do not need to do on Windows. The heart of the system is the Open Management Infrastructure (OMI) stack, which was contributed by Microsoft to The Open Group for further development; it is an implementation of a standard by the Desktop (Distributed) Management Task Force, who developed a low-level layer in the form of Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) for managing a variety of system indicators. Low-level requests still rely on this model to access BIOS information and hardware or network infrastructures. Even many

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