watchmaker

Applied Configuration Management

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Overview

Watchmaker is intended to help provision a system from its initial installation to its final configuration. It was inspired by a desire to eliminate static system images with embedded configuration settings (e.g. gold disks) and the pain associated with maintaining them.

Watchmaker works as a sort of task runner. It consists of “managers” and “workers”. A manager implements common methods for multiple platforms (Linux, Windows, etc). A worker exposes functionality to a user that helps bootstrap and configure the system. Managers are primarily internal constructs; workers expose configuration artifacts to users. Watchmaker then uses a common configuration file to determine what workers to execute on each platform.

Contents

• Installation
• Configuration
• Usage
• Execution Customization
• Troubleshooting Guidance
• Hardening “Gotchas”
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Supported SCAP Benchmarks
• Common Scan Findings
• API Reference
• Contributing
• Changelog
• CentOS Stream Discontinuation Notes

Supported Operating Systems

• Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL/Oracle Linux/CentOS Stream/Alma Linux/Rocky Linux)

• Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL/Oracle Linux/CentOS Stream)

• Windows Server 2022

• Windows Server 2019

• Windows Server 2016

• Windows 11

• Windows 10

Supported Python Versions

• Python 3.6 and later

Supported Salt Versions

• Salt 2018.3, from 2018.3.4 and later

• Salt 2019.2, from 2019.2.5 and later

• Salt 300x, from 3003 and later