[GTALUG] simple straightforward tool for mainaining small networked of imaged linux boxes

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Oct 07, 2014 at 07:01:42AM -0400, Matt Price wrote:
> Lennart, can you explain that process in more detail?  I mean, what tool
> would one PXE boot from?
> 
> Walter, that is helpful but still sounds pretty time-consuming -- I would
> like to find a way to have an unattended re-imaging that can run
> more-or-less simultaneously on all the machines.

If the BIOS has an option for network boot, then you could enable that.
Then the server would have to have 'pxe' (pxe boot daemon) running to
send the boot files to the client when it powers on.  This would then
provide the boot menu and such for the client, which could normally be
to load the kernel and ramdisk from the local disk, or to network boot
a kernel and ramdisk that reflash the local disk, perhaps using partimage
to transfer the image from the server to the client.

You might even set up wake on lan if supported so you could remotely
turn the machines on when you want them to do the reimaging of the disk.
In fact a lot of machines can have a different boot order for normal
boot versus wake on lan boot making some parts even simpler.

-- 
Len Sorensen