Unified way to track user configuration on a live system

A computing system comprising:

• a cluster of hosts each configured with a virtualization software for supporting execution of virtual machines therein, wherein each of the hosts is configured to carry out a method of remediating configurations of a plurality of system services running therein, said method comprising:
• retrieving actual configurations of the system services, wherein the actual configurations are stored in accordance with a configuration schema of the system services and include a user configuration, which is a configuration initiated by a user, and a system configuration, which is a configuration initiated by a host in response to the user configuration;
• retrieving desired configurations of the system services from a desired configuration file;
• comparing each of the actual configurations that are not system configurations, with a corresponding one of the desired configurations;
• and
• upon determining that at least one actual configuration, which is not a system configuration of the system configurations, is different from a corresponding one of the desired configurations, replacing the at least one actual configuration with the corresponding desired configuration.

A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions to be executed in one of a plurality of hosts that are each configured with a virtualization software for supporting execution of virtual machines therein, to carry out a method of remediating configurations of a plurality of system services running therein, said method comprising:

• retrieving actual configurations of the system services, wherein the actual configurations are stored in accordance with a configuration schema of the system services and include a user configuration, which is a configuration initiated by a user, and a system configuration, which is a configuration initiated by the host in response to the user configuration;
• retrieving desired configurations of the system services from a desired configuration file;
• comparing each of the actual configurations that are not system configurations, with a corresponding one of the desired configurations;
• and
• upon determining that at least one actual configuration, which is not a system configuration of the system configurations, is different from a corresponding one of the desired configurations, replacing the at least one actual configuration with the corresponding desired configuration.