What would be an appropriate tool/approach for configuration management of a relatively small number of VPS/VMs (1-5). Even though it's a small number I'm a big fan of "nuke 'n boot" in case of any problems and therefore need to be able to setup a new VPS with an existing configuration quickly (minutes).
Puppet, chef and the likes seem to be fairly oversized for that setup - apart from the fact that they aim to sell their enterprise version and the open source version is rather crippled. Open Source is a must criteria for me.
I currently manage most of this stuff manually by having copies of the relevant config files on dropbox or summaries in evernote, etc. Preferably I would like to use a tool that runs on a local Ubuntu server or so from which I could easily manage one to a few remote VPS or local VM instances.
Does anyone have experience with that topic and can recommend something? I consider chef and puppet oversized, etckeeper on the other hand is a bit too limited.
Edit:
A solution with Management UI would be preferred
I summarize the proposals from the comments here:
- Puppet Open Source version without UI and limited features
- Chef Open Source version with a bit less features
- Capistrano non UI, scripting or ruby
- Foreman UI for Puppet, Chef
