why not OS X?

[Steve McGrane]

What existing linux solution did you employ to get this running, and how
long has it been out?

- Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: yellowdog-general-admin@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
[mailto:yellowdog-general-admin@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com]On Behalf
Of Konstantin Riabitsev
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 5:43 PM
To: yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
Subject: Re: why not OS X?


On Tue, 2002-06-04 at 17:22, Thomas Kernes wrote:
> Apple Remote Desktop allows network-wide software upgrades...albeit for a
> price.

Right, so does Red Hat. However, with Red Hat you are not limited to "do
it with us, or don't do it at all". We are happily automatically
patching Red Hat based systems for all of Duke University, pretty much,
all at no cost except for the bandwidth which Duke provides us free
anyway.

Moreover, "Remote Desktop" is not entirely what I am talking about. Say,
you have a network of workstations on a private IP subnet and you want
to update software on all of them. With remote desktop, you will still
need to somehow allow them to connect to Apple and download updates.
PUNCH. That's a nice hole in your firewall. Or, let's imagine that you
have 200 machines, and one wussy ISDN line out. Consider how long it
would take for a 50-Mb update to download 200 times? Wouldn't you rather
have an internal server where you could put a package for the clients to
download and install it over your 100Base-T?

> I updated PHP and SSH without waiting for Apple to distribute a patch.
> Isn't that what you do every time you want to upgrade your Linux system?

Nope, I wait for a package from Red Hat, and then put it on my internal
update server. Overnight all my 250 boxes contact it and install the
update. Consider:

you: download, compile, [curse, hack, compile], package, ssh to your
clients, install
me: download, rpm --resign, upload.

Now let's calculate admin time spent on updating 250 OS X boxes, and
admin time spent on updating 250 Linux boxes... Hmm... Better keep that
secret from your employers...

> I use my OS X systems everyday in production environments and wish (as a
> system admin) that everyone else would consider it.

I don't argue that it can be done. I'm just saying that compared to
existing linux solutions you/your employers are paying through the nose.

--
 0>  Konstantin ("Icon") Riabitsev
/ )  Duke University Physics Sysadmin
 ~   www.phy.duke.edu/~icon/pubkey.asc