Network ISO

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

Teddy Mills wrote:
> 
> I want to install 50 or so .ISOs on a server.
> Create a CD that will connect to that server over the network so I can
> choose a distro and then start the installation
> 
> I was thinking of PXE, but I do not want to use PXE unless I have to.
> Getting a PC to boot from PXE or from CD is about the same amount of
> effort.

Not if you're doing more than one machine. PXE booting is trivially easy
to set up. If you have older machines that don't have boot ROMs, you can
still netboot using EtherBoot ROM images on floppies.

> Is there a project that does something like this?

FAI <http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/>, which I didn't like.

Clonezilla <http://clonezilla.org/>, which I also didn't like, though I
don't think it is what you want.

<http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_pxe_install_server>, which I've used
and like. I've modified that scheme a bit so that I can do Wake-on-Lan
an push the installations to the clients via kickstart or preseed. I
create a symlink to the boot config I want but I have to remember to
remove the symlink after the client has booted via PXE so that I don't
get into a loop. The default PXE boot config I have is to boot from the
local hard drive. That way, I don't have to run around to all the
clients to change the boot order whenever I want to PXE boot.

All that manual fiddling led me to Cobbler
<https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/>, which automates the process. I'm
quite impressed by it.

The ISO images aren't enough. You'll be installing using those and then
doing updates. If you're going to install more than one system, it makes
sense to create a local cache or repository for your packages along with
the updates so that when the installation has completed, you don't have
to install updates and you're also gentler on your Internet connection.
It makes much more sense fetching the packages from a server on your LAN
when you're rolling out 50 machines via PXE as opposed to fetching them
from a server on the Internet.

My next task is to figure out how to automate the shrinking of the
partition used by Windows on a lab full of machines so that I can
kickstart Fedora 10 onto the free space. I think I can do it the %pre
section of the kickstart file. In the first pass, I'll shrink the
Windows partition, reboot, and then do the kickstart install. If I can
figure out how to remotely invoke the disk defragmentation utility in
XP, I'd be very happy because I would eliminate the need to have someone
babysit each of the machines on the network.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay
Dinamis
1419-3266 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON
Canada  M4N 3P6

<http://dinamis.com>
+1 416-410-3326
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