Meta-configuration tool

We design and deliver bespoke stand-alone systems that consist of a variable number of software modules distributed over a variable number of machines. One example system consists of circa 140 software modules distributed over approximately 60 machines.

Each of the software modules requires some kind of configuration file that would include things like database access URLs, server IP addresses ad so on. Many of these parameters are interdependent; for example, if module "A" is deployed on machine "X" then module "B" needs the IP address for machine "X" in it's config file.

Before we hack som开发者_高级运维ething together in Python or some other scripting language, are there any existing tools that do this kind of thing? I'm thinking something like transforming a system description into a bunch of configuration files.

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Apparently my google-fu has returned today, and I've found these:

• Cfengine
• Chef
• Puppet
• SmartFrog

And a wiki page with similar tools here.

All of these tools do far more than I had originally considered (for example, deployment), but this might be a useful thing for us anyway.