[et-mgmt-tools] Installing without PXE, and without the live CD -- "cobbler buildiso"

[Michael DeHaan]

For a while Cobbler has had a solution based on koan and the live CD to 
enable network provisioning of bare metal in environments that either do 
not have DHCP, or do not have control over DHCP that is sufficient 
enough to set up a PXE environment.  Naturally, if you can set up a PXE 
environment with Cobbler, it's very useful to have, and you'll want it.

So, along came the live CD.

The live CD was built using a recent Fedora, and it had the magic 
ability to install any distro -- /except/ you had to use Fedora to build 
the Live CD, and the build process was slow, and the live image was a 
bit bigger than it needed to be.   However, due to driver constraints, 
it didn't always support the latest in storage technology -- that was a 
problem.

We have finally implemented the low-tech solution, thanks to various 
folks in Red Hat GPS, and some hacking I've done to integrate that 
closer into cobbler.

Using 0.9.X or later (it's checked in now into the git "devel" branch) 
you can do:

    cobbler buildiso [--iso=] [--tempdir=] [--profiles=]

This will automatically generate an ISO that allows for menus just like 
Cobbler's PXE boot menus, for installing new systems.  I also plan to 
allow a configurable default profile for those who want to mass deploy 
this image using remote management processors, etc.

The menu will contain an entry for each bare metal bootable profile, 
with the current data set in Cobbler.    Given that Cobbler now 
generates kickstarts in real time, changes to the kickstart templates 
can be made without reburning the CD!

Again, the live CD is more dynamic, but this is much smaller, faster, 
and easier to build. 

The one thing the live CD still offers is simulation of the MAC address 
detection feature of PXE, but if you don't need to use cobbler system 
records to provision your lab/datacenter/etc, this will also get you 
there -- and is probably the perfect fit if the Live CD was not working 
out for you.

Test release will be available soon, git is available now.

--Michael