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

[Aaron Lippold]

Hi,

One other option that would be useful is what if my cobbler server has a
whole lot of profiles but I only want a few or the situation where - since
we have module ownership now - I only want "my profiles" on the iso.

>From what I read before, createiso basically mirrors the cobbler server onto
the livecd right? ( if error, please correct ) That's cool, but what if I
have a whole lot of media - like 10 distros - I may only want to put my
"Fedora X x86 desktop profiles" on the cd right? Secondly, if I did have 10
distros, no way that all fits on my one dvd...

Also, this might be a dumb question but does the livecd know how to "install
to self" as well?

Yours,

Aaron

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Michael DeHaan <mdehaan at redhat.com> wrote:

> 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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> >
>
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