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Manage your configuration with Rudder

Take the Helm

Article from ADMIN 88/2025

By Holger Reibold

Rudder is a versatile dashboard environment for an IT infrastructure that helps you enforce changes needed to make sure your servers meet specific compliance requirements.

Many administrators rely on Ansible for configuration management, but Rudder [1] is an interesting alternative that combines legacy dashboard functionality with configuration management. Put simply, Rudder handles two tasks at the same time in a web-based environment that monitors the configurations of your infrastructure components continuously in real time, presents a high-level summary, and supports ISO 27001 rules.

Implementing an end-to-end configuration strategy can be challenging, which is where Rudder enters the scene. The tool is based on a simple framework that lets you apply specific low-level configuration patterns with the integrated rule editor. Like a modular system, Rudder uses basic configuration elements, and the graphical builder significantly reduces the level of technical wizardry you need. However, those who prefer a command-line approach can steer their environment at the console level.

In principle, policies can be configured independently of each other at the policy and host levels with Enforce policy mode to assert configuration changes. Another positive aspect is that Rudder supports physical and virtual devices, which means you can monitor traditional servers and infrastructure components and modify their configurations, and you can do the same for your virtual servers and cloud instances.

Rudder also supports embedded Internet of Things (IoT) devices. You always have the choice of the level at which central configuration will take place. You can define this globally with configuration rules and on a node-specific basis. Auditing is also supported.

Rudder relies on a classic agent-server environment for monitoring and configuration management. The use of agents is mandatory. According to the developers, the lightweight agent, which is programmed in C, is extremely fast: Processing 100 rules takes fewer than 10 seconds.

Rudder's primary area of

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