7 of the Best Free Linux Configuration Management Tools

System administrators are responsible for the maintenance and operation of a computer system and network.

This is a major task with a huge number of decisions to be made regarding the configuration of the system.

Configuration Management is a term that may not be familiar to many Linux users.

But for system administrators the concept will be well known.

In a nutshell, Configuration Management software enables administrators to automatically manage the entire configuration of one or multiple computers.

Why is this type of software important? By having tools that automate the configuration and software infrastructure, an organisation's server administration costs are reduced.

Furthermore, this type of software enables a large complicated infrastructure to be supported with fewer system administrators.

There are also efficiency improvements made by helping to reduce the amount of repetitive tasks performed by the administrator.

Moreover, configuration management software help organisations to be able to scale up their computer infrastructure more easily and to instill flexibility in server configuration.

Configuration Management tools work by changing the state of the system. The goal is to get a system from whatever state it is in, into the desired state.

The state of a system is mostly described by all the configuration files in the file system, and by the programs and processes that are running.

The software featured in this article are declarative configuration management system. Here the system administrator decides what state the system is to be in, and a runtime pushes the system into that state.

To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 7 high quality Linux Configuration Management tools. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for any organisation that wants to streamline their computer infrastructure.

Now, let's explore the 7 Configuration Management tools at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

Configuration Management Tools
Cfengine	Tool for configuring and maintaining network machines
Bcfg2	Generates configuration sets for clients bound by client profiles
Chef	Configuration management system written in Ruby
Puppet	Centralised configuration management for networks
OCS Inventory NG	Hardware and software inventory tool
PIKT	Problem Informant / Killer Tool
SmartFrog	Smart Framework for Object Groups