Conga Architecture
Conga is an agent/server architecture for remote administration of
systems. The agent component is called "ricci", and the server is called
"luci". One luci server can communicate with many multiple ricci agents
installed on systems. When a system is added to a luci server to be
administered, authentication is done once. No authentication is necessary from
then on (unless the certificate used is revoked by a CA, but in fact, CA
integration is not complete in version #1 of conga). Through the UI provided
by luci, users can configure and administer storage and cluster behavior on
remote systems. Communication between luci and ricci is done via XML.
Luci Description
As stated above, systems to be administered are "added" to a luci server (in
the documentation that follows, the term "registered" is also used to mean
that a system has been added to a luci server to be administered remotely). This
is done by storing the hostname (FQDN) or IP address of the system in the luci
database. When a luci server is first installed, the database is empty. It is
possible, however, to import part or all of a systems database from an
existing luci server when deploying a new luci server. This capability
provides a means for replication of a luci server instance, as well as an
easier upgrade and testing path.
Every luci server instance has one user at initial installation time. This
user is called "admin". Only the admin user may add systems to a luci
server. The admin user can also create additional user accounts and determine
which users are allowed to access which systems in the luci server
database. It is possible to import users as a batch operation in a new luci
server, just as it is possible to import systems.