SysAdmin Internship Case Study

this was a case study for a sysadmin internship position, I replaced the name of the company to "doot" in all appearances before making it public. didnt delete the commit history, so if you are curious, go ahead.

The easiest way to run is carrying /srv/ folder entirely to the master machine.

sudo salt '*' test.ping

For WordPress config, you might need to change the MySQL host. Please check out the wp-config.php file.

sudo salt 'ubuntu22' mysql.sls

sudo salt 'centos9' wordpress.sls

After all, go to CentOS minion's IP address /wp-admin to see the results.

Notes

• If MySQL salt state errors out at wordpressdb_remote_access step, depending on the error, there is no error. If it reports "Duplicate key", then it is okay. As SaltStack can only execute one statement per query.run, there is no chance to know if that key is already created. So there is no update, nothing. It is just a warning. This could be solved by query.run_file and a seperate SQL file, buut, another problem! run_file state tries to create the database I am pointing the query at, even through it exists, and I cant command the Salt to not do that. So I can't use run_file, I can't use cmd.run because -p flag exposes the password. So, I have to use query.run and live with the warning disguised in the error.
• Parts of the wordpress may not work. If you test the MySQL connection from CentOS machine by

  yum install mysql
  mysql -ppassword -hhost -uuser doot

  you will see that there is no problem in connection for MySQL between the Ubuntu <-> CentOS, but still, some parts of Wordpress may not work and nginx.conf may be incomplete.
• If you want to use Vagrant with my Vagrantfile and the same IP ranges:
  • Be sure that the VirtualBox Guest Additions package is installed, /etc/vbox/networks.conf contains the following:

    * 10.0.0.0/8 192.168.0.0/16

  • You have the ./scripts folder relative to the location of the Vagrantfile. The folder contents are the same as in this repo.
  • The first argument in the provision script corresponds to the IP address of the master machine:

        ubuntu22.vm.provision "shell", path: "./scripts/install-minion.sh", args: ["10.10.28.69", "ubuntu22"]

  The second argument is the name of the minion machine.
  • If you want to change the boxes, please test them thoroughly. I have tested EuroLinux's Centos 9 Stream, minion running in the machine was hanging whenever I executed a command. Only CentOS 9 Stream working was generic CentOS 9 Stream. So please be careful with the boxes.
  • If you see the warning "Remote connection disconnected, retrying..." while Ubuntu is being provisioned, please wait. It is a false warning, and it does not block the creation of the machine or the setup of the minion.

I have spent so many hours on this project within these three days, and, there is always a room for improvement, as there is in every project. I am open to any feedback, and I am willing to improve myself. I hope you like my work. Thank you for this opportunity. And, thank you for your time.

Peace <3