Microsoft announced the CTP release of Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration for Linux

When I was speaking at DevOpsDays India and demonstrating Windows PowerShel DSC (6 months ago), several people in the room had a laugh as I’d mentioned Microsoft and OpenSource. I’d mentioned that DSC is based on standards and it will, one day, be extended to Unix and Linux platforms. I spoke about configuration management of your entire data centre based on standards like CIM and WS-MAN. And, that is available today!

If you were at TechEd or watched it online or followed #msteched on Twitter, you would have noticed the buzz around an Open Source announcement by Jeffrey Snover. Microsoft released a CTP version of DSC for Linux on GitHub.

Prerequisites

Building OMI 1.0.8 requires the following packages:

  • pam-devel
  • openssl-devel

This initial CTP release has only a few DSC resources available!

  • nxFile – manage files and directory state
  • nxScript – runs script blocks on target nodes
  • nxUser – manages Linux users
  • nxGroup – manages Linux groups
  • nxService – manages Linux services (System-V, Upstart, SystemD)

Hey, this is open sourced. So, let us build this together!

A complete step-by-step guidance for this is available at: http://blogs.technet.com/b/privatecloud/archive/2014/05/19/powershell-dsc-for-linux-step-by-step.aspx

This is really an exciting time and I will be closely following the development and writing my observations and learning here. Watch this space.

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