How can I add packages, repositories, and users to all nodes?

Question

I've installed MAAS and added 8 nodes with Ubuntu Server 12.04 amd64. I would like to build a cluster with Condor and centralized authentication with LDAP. I'm starting to think that MAAS wasn't a good starting point, but maybe I can fix that.

How can I add packages and repositories to all nodes? Is it by changing the .iso from MAAS server? Can I do that with Juju?

How to add users and groups to the nodes? How to change fstab on all nodes so it can use NFS? Can I also deploy a whole folder with a binary application?

Answer 1

There is no easy way to do this via MAAS.

MAAS's purpose is to prepare just a plain, freshly installed node for you to then customise further. It will place your SSH public key on the node so that you can access it... then it's yours to do with as you wish.

MAAS is intentionally fairly lean. It was created mainly as a machine provider for Juju, but its API can be used by any application. (Juju does not get special treatment from MAAS. It's the other way round: we enhanced Juju to understand MAAS.)