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

[Michael DeHaan]

Subhendu Ghosh wrote:
> Michael DeHaan wrote:
>> 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
>>
>
> If the iso(s) can be made available through the web infrastructure, 
> and accessible via a predefined or calculated path, then a external 
> rules engine could drive the provisioning process through the remote 
> management processors's virtual media capabilities.
>
It can :)

mkdir /var/www/html/foo
cobbler buildiso --iso=/var/www/html/foo/kickstart.iso 

I just need add the flag for setting what the default is and making the 
timeouts variable.

> Perhaps the profiles module could be extended to define whether a iso 
> should be generated or not. An easy way to automatically generate boot 
> isos.
>

Right now there's some basic code to keep paravirt "-xen" distros from 
showing up on the ISO since they have no chance of being bootable.    
Though that is a good idea.

Another possibility is to add it as "cobbler profile edit --name=foo ... 
--menu=foo" to do submenus, and if we really wanted that.    We could allow
--menu=hide as part of that syntax.

> -sg
>
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