[et-mgmt-tools] Re: Two other comments

[Michael DeHaan]

David Mackintosh wrote:
> In the process of looking at this, I had two other comments:
>
> 1.  It would be nice if there was a quiet mode for cobbler sync.
>     Twelve distros generate a lot of noise.
>   
Believe it or not, it used to be louder.   Point taken.
> 2.  The "name" parameter should be a descriptive (possibly optional)
>     field and the MAC address a separate parameter (which might possibly
>     be plugged into the "name" field if the "name" field was not explicitly
>     provided).
>
> Specifically -- figuring out which "system" is my target when all you
> have is a listing of MAC addresses is even more tedious than figuring
> out what their MAC addresses were in the first place; ie:
>
> [root at router /]$ cobbler list | grep system
> system 1        : 00:11:43:cd:81:f8
> system 2        : 00:04:23:0A:14:04
> system 3        : 00:04:23:a6:a0:86
> system 4        : 00:06:5B:B1:7D:7B
> system 5        : 00:30:1B:AD:90:9B
> system 6        : 00:d0:b7:7a:90:b0
>
> The "name" should probably be a descriptive label and have the MAC
> address as a separate parameter as so: 
>
> # cobbler system add --name="tpx18" --mac=00:04:23:a6:a0:86 --profile=[...] --pxe-address=[...]
>   
Name is already in use in the field and can't change, though I 
understand your point. 

A perhaps better solution is to add an optional --description field for 
each object (including distros and systems) and show that information next
to the "cobbler list" data. 

> Of course if "name" was a hostname that was resolvable, that would make
> putting in the functionality of cobbler_byname easy... :)
>   
Yes, the name has to be resolveable in order to use it with pxelinux.   
Hostnames aren't requested by pxelinux when it's asking for files over 
TFTP, just IP's and MAC's.   And if you are using MAC's, you can let 
cobbler manage a dhcpd.conf file and generate reservations for you, 
using --pxe-address=ip.