[et-mgmt-tools] Installing without PXE, and without the live CD -- "cobbler buildiso"
Michael DeHaan
mdehaan at redhat.com
Tue May 6 14:18:55 UTC 2008
Pablo Iranzo Gómez wrote:
> Aaron,
> "buildiso" just copies all kernel and initrds not being for xen in an
> ISO for you to burn it and boot your machines, so you've plenty space
> for many many
>
Indeed you do, although if you want to add only certain profiles, that
is what I have in mind regarding:
cobbler buildiso --profiles=a,b,c,d,e
Though this is only really necessary if you are making images for, say,
32 mb USB sticks from 1997 :)
Putting a single distro on a CD makes a 24 Mb image or so. Also, if
multiple profiles share the same distro, the kernels/initrds are only
copied once for each distro, not once for each profile.
So this is really a non-issue.
> AFAIK it doesn't use the --user to show only profiles owned by you, but
> will need to test latest git code.
>
Ownership affects who can make changes to objects using the WebUI, but
anyone can always deploy any profile.
>
> Livecd != buildiso
>
> Regards
> Pablo
>
> El lun, 05-05-2008 a las 23:34 -0400, Aaron Lippold escribió:
>
>> 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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