I like the idea of this a lot. It would be so handy to have a CD I could bring with me for setting up a machine with this stuff in one step.

Commentary: Project Idea: “IT Department In A Box”

It’s dawned on me that a great many small sites (and possibly big sites too) would be greatly helped if someone made a single box that included:

• RequestTracker
• Some kind of up/down monitoring system like Nagios or BigBrother
• Some kind of capacity planning monitor like Cricket or MRTG
• TWiki or other Wiki, with a pre-built set of pages
• A serial console system like Conserver.com
• Bacula or other free backup system

While none of those are difficult to install for an experienced Linux person, the goal would be a system that the common “Mr. Fixit” kind of sysadmin that serves small sites would be able to load a CD-ROM and have the entire machine working very quickly. Each application would be pre-installed, and pre-customized. For example, the install procedure would ask for the IP address of a few key servers, and Nagios would default to monitoring it. The Wiki would have pre-configured pages that include add/remove/change procedures the above items (how to add/remove/change a server that Nagios monitors, add/remove/change a file system that Bacula is backing up, etc.). [Everything Sysadmin]<./p>

The thing I’d add to this is that the whole thing would come with a good set of docs on paper on how to use everything. While you can always go and print something like that off. I just like the feel of a real book for docs at times (I hate reading things on screen). I’d also even expand this idea some. How about a series of CDs for different purposes (firewall?). Tools like this would be really handy for people who are maybe doing part time sysadmin work for a small company (and as the post says, even big ones).