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What platforms do you support?

We currently support Red Hat Linux (Enterprise and Fedora Core), CentOS Linux, SUSE Linux, Debian and Ubuntu Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD. etch depends on Perl and a few other standard Unix utilities, it’s generally easy for us to add support for otherr Unix-based platforms. Contact us if you're interested in support for another platform.

What does it cost?

We're not quite ready to publish prices, but if you contact our sales team they'll be happy to give you a quote with minimal fuss.

How does etch compare to cfengine?

cfengine is the most widely deployed system configuration management tool, so comparisons between cfengine and etch are inevitable. We have heard cfengine characterized as "great at deciding to do something, not very good at actually doing it". cfengine has a fairly well developed system of classifying and grouping systems for decision making, but only rudimentary tools for managing configuration files. Etch has a similar system of classifying systems via both automatically determined and human-assigned attributes, but also has a very powerful system for building configuration files and associating actions and test conditions with updates to those files.

I only have 10 servers, will etch help me?

Yes, absolutely. One environment where etch is used heavily is a small environment which is used for extensive testing of operating systems. As such the systems are frequently rebuilt and the admins grew tired of manually reconfiguring the systems after each install. Even in small environments etch can help you capture system configurations to quickly reconfigure machines after OS upgrades or recover after hardware failures.

I have thousands of servers, will etch survive?

Yes, absolutely. We know of at least one large, complex site using etch to manage more than 10,000 servers. With most of the processing done on the clients you can easily serve thousands of clients from a single etch server. The configuration repository is easily replicated to multiple servers for scalability and redundancy. Complex environments will require thoughtful categorization of your servers and organization of your configuration repository. But hey, you already know that managing thousands of servers isn't easy. Thankfully etch can make it easier.

How do I configure application X with etch?

The first place to look would be the source-samples directory included with etch. We include sample configurations for more than 75 files. If you can't find what you're looking for there you can ask on the mailing list, chances are someone on the list can provide you with an example configuration.

Is etch Open Source?

No, a more appropriate description of our licensing would be the term "source available". We make the source code for etch available to customers and parties interested in evaluating the application, but the license does not allow redistribution of the source code or modifications to others.

Will etch run on Windows?

Etch is written in Perl and depends on a few Unix utilites. Using Cygwin or similar packages we're quite certain you could get etch to run. But see the next question.

Would etch do anything useful on Windows?

Etch is built to manage configuration files, but most Windows systems don't have many configuration files that need managing. Windows configuration is primarily stored in the registry. If there's sufficient interest in an etch plugin to manage the Windows registry we'll explore creating one.