[plug] FAI, anyone?

[Adrian Woodley]

Yep, saw that in the access logs. :P

Most of the development for this was accomplished using KVM and I highly 
recommend you do the same. (Or QEMU, VirtualBox or even VMWare). It's so 
much easier than using a real machine and burning a heap of CDs.

Adrian

Marcos Raul Carot Collins wrote:
> Thanks for that!
>
> I'll look into it. I just downloaded it :)
>
> Cheers!
>
> Marcos
>
> El Sun, 7 Dec 2008 05:46:42 PM Adrian Woodley escribió:
>   
>> Sure, dob me in Hooker.
>>
>> Coincidentally, I recently (as in today) built an FAI CD for Ubuntu Hard
>> (i386).
>>
>> The CD will format the machine with a 512M swap partition and the rest
>> of the drive as ext3 /. It uses the iiNet Ubuntu repository and expects
>> to be able to DHCP an address.
>>
>> Once the install is completed, you can locate the machine on the network
>> via Avahi/Bonjour (should be called FAI-SERVER). The root password is
>> password.
>>
>> The image is located at http://dump.diskworld.com.au/fai.iso
>>
>> The script I used to build the image looks like this:
>>
>> #Dowload the netboot mini.iso
>> wget
>> http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/installer-i386/current/
>> images/netboot/mini.iso
>>
>> #mount the iso as a loopback
>> mkdir /tmp/netboot
>> sudo mount -o loop mini.iso /tmp/netboot
>>
>> #Create a working copy of the iso
>> cp -a /tmp/netboot .
>> chmod -R +w netboot
>>
>> #Ungzip upstream initrd
>> zcat netboot/initrd.gz > initrd
>>
>> #Append the preseed file to the cpio archive
>> find . -name preseed.cfg |cpio -o -H newc --append -F initrd
>>
>> #Re-gzip the initrd into place in the netboot directory
>> gzip -c initrd > netboot/initrd.gz
>>
>> #Change the isolinux time from 0 (never) to 3
>> sed -i -e 's/TIMEOUT.*/TIMEOUT 3/' netboot/isolinux.cfg
>>
>> #Create the ISO image from the netboot directory
>> mkisofs -r -V "Ubuntu Hardy FAI CD" -cache-inodes -J -l -b isolinux.bin
>> -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o fai.iso
>> netboot
>>
>> You'll need to generate a preseed.cfg file. The one I used it available
>> at http://dump.diskworld.com.au/preseed.cfg
>>
>> More info and examples here:
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/installation-guide/example-preseed.txt
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/installation-guide/i386/appendix-preseed.html
>>
>> That should be enough to get you started.
>>
>> *BIG FAT WARNING*
>> This image will automatically and without prompting format your
>> hard-drive and install a base version of Ubuntu Hardy.
>> *DO NOT LEAVE THE CD IN THE DRIVE AND REBOOT!*
>> (like I did to my work laptop :P )
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Adrian
>>
>> Paul wrote:
>>     
>>> On Sat, 2008-12-06 at 23:08 +0900, Marcos Raul Carot Collins wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Hi there!
>>>>
>>>> Has any of you tried FAI (Full automated Installation) in either Debian
>>>> or Ubuntu?
>>>>
>>>> I am reading and re-reading the manual but can't understand the classes
>>>> thingy and how to write my own.
>>>>
>>>> Any example classes/configuration files (other than the ones provided
>>>> with the FAI package) may help a lot.
>>>>
>>>> I just want to Install a full Debian system on client computers using
>>>> FAI.
>>>>
>>>> I got to the point where everything works with the sample files
>>>> provided, but that only installs a very basic Debian over a PXE boot,
>>>> NFS mounted FS + a local Debian Mirror.
>>>>         
>>> Not personally, but iiNet uses FAI for all server builds - very
>>> successfully too.
>>>
>>> Adrian, you ought there?
>>>
>>> Hooker
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
>> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
>> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>