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.
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.
Distributed under the GNU GPL v2 license.