Re: Help needed replicating Linux boxes

[Rob Mellor]

"Alex Butcher" <alex.butcher.news0903a@assursys.co.uk> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.09.25.16.20.18.38671@assursys.co.uk. ..
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 17:13:09 +0100, Slowburn wrote:
>
>
> The slickest way to do this is using DHCP and TFTP, and tying
> configurations to individual machines' MAC addresses.
>

Would that mean having one preserved image per machine, or could I have one
image, download it to all machines and then automagically set hostname/IP
address by referencing the MAC address somehow? Is their best practice for
this sort of shennanigans?

>
> If you don't want to use KickStart, there's Ghost equivalents -
> <http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/> and <http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/> spring
> to mind.
>

Cheers Alex, these look really good. I particularly like the look of
Mindi/Mondo. My machines don't have CD-Rs in, but I may be able write an
image to hard disk and then send it to a machine with a CD-R... if the
resulting CD(s) are bootable then Bob is very much my uncle, although I'll
still want a natty way of assigning hostname/IP address as above.

Thanks for the help, excellent food for thought!

Rob

[Rob Mellor]

"Steve Naïve" <steveN@hogg.org> wrote in message
news:Xns9401B23A657D9BLANK@195.8.68.222...
> "Slowburn" <Father.Vivian.Oblivion@SaintAlfonzosPancakeBreakfa st.com>
> wrote in news:bkv40o$68tdn$1@ID-177093.news.uni-berlin.de:
>
>
> Have a look at the very quick Dolly. From the beowulf list;
[snip]
>

Thanks Steve, it does look impressive. I wonder how it will perform on a bus
network? I'm sure it would still work, but I wonder if the switched ethernet
functionality is key to its performance? Oh well, one way to find out...

Rob

[Rob Mellor]

"root" <root@home.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.09.25.16.37.59.933534@home.com...
>
> If the machines are all the same you can the PXES project to diskless
> boot, then use an NFS mount re-install just like the Suns. Thats what I do
> - but only any good if the boxes are same/similar.
>

Well, the machines are all identical, so no problems there, but I'm not sure
I quite get your method; I thought PXES was a thin client/X-client jobber...
ok so that gets my boxes up and running, but how do I do the "NFS mount
re-install"? More to the point, can I automate it/do it unattended?

Sorry if I am being dense!
Rob

[Alex Butcher]

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 15:41:42 +0100, Rob Mellor wrote:

>
> "Alex Butcher" <alex.butcher.news0903a@assursys.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:pan.2003.09.25.16.20.18.38671@assursys.co.uk. ..
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 17:13:09 +0100, Slowburn wrote:
>>
>>
>> The slickest way to do this is using DHCP and TFTP, and tying
>> configurations to individual machines' MAC addresses.
>>
>
> Would that mean having one preserved image per machine, or could I have one
> image, download it to all machines and then automagically set hostname/IP
> address by referencing the MAC address somehow? Is their best practice for
> this sort of shennanigans?

First of all, using DHCP, you can statically assign an IP address to a
given MAC address (which is also the best way to handle servers which
should remain on a fixed IP address) in a DHCP environment.

Secondly, Kickstart works by having configuration file for each IP address
(or MAC address - I can't remember which, but it doesn't really matter, as
above) and a single unified source of Red Hat installation images
available via NFS, FTP or, I think, SMB.

Kickstart is probably most useful in labs or "enterprise" workstation
environments.

> Rob

HTH,
Alex.
--
Alex Butcher Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950 <http://www.assursys.com/>