How to document linux server configuration?

Solution 1:

I assume this is a long term documentation effort, not just trying to capture a snapshot of the current configuration.

The wiki works now and might keep you sane for a while but if your environment changes quickly you will have a serious problem. You will always have to make sure the cron jobs are properly written, run in a timely fashion, get written for new services, are compatible with new versions of software, etc.

Consider using an configuration management tool like Puppet or Cfengine. At least put whatever data you collect under version control (like Mercurial, git, or Subversion).

Your configuration data is coming in from everywhere instead of being centralized. A wiki will always lag the current state of your machines. You need to centralize the configuration data; make it flow from the center out to the edges. But it is true that sometimes you have to go out and capture configuration data. Cfengine can do audits, Puppet might. Look at this Wikipedia article listing other configuration managers.

Solution 2:

You might want to try cfg2html, which dumps your configuration to an HTML file, which you can then fetch at regular intervals and serve from a central server.


Solution 3:

Next time you tweak a machine, you should install etckeeper on it first. That way you will keep a log of configuration changes.

What distro are you using? There are some quite convenient tools for managing and auditing conffiles, and they generally depend on the package manager.


Solution 4:

My suggestion would be just to build a wiki to centralize information and get a script to edit pages so that configuration files are updated on the wiki automatically through a cron job.

If you use moin, you should check http://moinmo.in/ScriptMarket/PutPageScript .

This way you get:

  1. Centralized documentation.

  2. Up-to-date system configuration.

  3. History of configuration changes.