Policy setup and structure
The current version of the Webhuis CFEngine policies are an evolution of Dynamic CFEngine.
Criticism of Dynamic CFEngine
Convergence is one of the fundamental principles of CFEngine on which the dynamic setup relies on too heavily, because policies are being used to identify dependent and subsequent policies. Policies are being derived from the concept of the 'role' a system has, components are defined in the role and convergently become available to the system. A role has one or more components that may depend on the platform or the flavor of the system.
- This may lead to a temporarily inconsistent policy set
- Developers tend to reject this setup, they want to have the policy set available right from the beginning
- The role concept as it was, was far from perfect, because of the redundancy in the different roles.
More on Roles
The role defines the system in every aspect.
- The hardware it has available
- The software it autonomously installs, configures and runs
Many roles look similar when it comes to many configuration aspects, but there always are those little differences. Those differences prevent the definition of a generic policy and provide redundancy in policies at best.
Enter the Role Profile concept.
Role Profile
While the concept of 'role' and components has not been abandoned, it had to be refined.
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