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by chrissnell 3713 days ago
I'm totally with you. We're big users of CoreOS and while there are aspects of cloud-init that I find janky, it's at least mostly easy to read and understand. The use of JSON is nuts. Just looking at the one-shots consolidated to a single line with \n's gives me a headache. This is moving forwards?

What I would prefer is a compiler. You feed it a directory of unit file drop-ins and app config templates and it builds a single artifact that can be served over HTTP and pulled by the server booting up. This could allow for dynamic configuration and automation but still makes it easy for the admin to piece the config together.
2 comments
robszumski 3713 days ago
Check out bootcfg, a server that sends out customized cloud config or ignition files based on mac address, IP, serial number, etc

https://github.com/coreos/coreos-baremetal#bootcfg

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seanp2k2 3713 days ago
A compiler. So now you have another language which compiles into JSON. So now there at least 2 problems, more if we want to be able to edit these configs on the systems directly, since we'll need some kind of tool chain.

Why do we keep re-inventing this wheel over and over again? Very plain text configs have worked for decades.

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