Most of these run Scientific Linux / Scientific Linux CERN, but we have a requirement to run debian hosts too.
Some observations that may help others:
Linux Integration Components
Even the latest MS ones (3.4 at last count) don't support debian / ubuntu. Hoever if you're running squeeze (6.0.x) then there's a 3.2 backport kernel available in debian backports that seems to work fine
Templates / DHCP hostnames
I noticed that our debian template host wasn't setting the hostname (assigned via dhcp) so using the example at http://nullcore.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/setting-the-system-hostname-from-dhcp-in-ubuntu-11-10/ I worked on a similar script that doesn't end up with a trailing period in the FQDN and appends to /etc/hosts if needed
lo:<pre>
#!/bin/sh
# Filename: /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/hostname
# Purpose: Used by dhclient-script to set the hostname of the system
# to match the DNS information for the host as provided by
# DHCP.
# Based on http://nullcore.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/setting-the-system-hostname-from-dhcp-in-ubuntu-11-10/
# Do not update hostname for virtual machine IP assignments
if [ "$interface" != "eth0" ]
then
return
fi
if [ "$reason" != BOUND ] && [ "$reason" != RENEW ] \
&& [ "$reason" != REBIND ] && [ "$reason" != REBOOT ]
then
return
fi
hostname=${new_host_name}.${new_domain_name}
#echo dhclient-exit-hooks.d/hostname: Dynamic Hostname = $hostname
#echo dhclient-exit-hooks.d/hostname: Dynamic IP address = $new_ip_address
echo $hostname > /etc/hostname
/etc/init.d/hostname.sh
# and append to hosts
grep -q $hostname /etc/hosts
if [ $? -eq 1 ] ; then
echo "$new_ip_address $hostname $new_host_name" >> /etc/hosts
fi
</pre>
