Identical systems

[Marc M]

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 20:00:40 -0600, Les Mikesell <les at futuresource.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 18:07, Ashley M. Kirchner wrote:
> >     What's the easiest way to, after a system gets setup (FC3 installed
> > fresh on the drive), "replicate" it across other machines with the same
> > hardware?  Basically I want to end up with several machines with the
> > same setup and programs.
> 
> If the hard disks are identical, you can do a complete image copy which
> will take the boot setup, partitioning et. along.  This is really easy
> with servers that have swappable drive carriers, but you can also do
> it over the network.  I usually boot a knoppix CD because it detects
> most hardware and comes up with the network running. Start an sshd
> server on the master, then from the clone machine do something like:
> ssh master_ip_address dd if=/dev/hda |dd of=/dev/hda  (appropriate
> disk names, of course). Go to lunch - it will take a while.  Repeat
> if more than one drive is involved.  Boot the new machine up and
> change it's name and ip address.
> 
> If the drives aren't identical you can do approximately the same
> by partitioning/formatting the new drive yourself, then copying
> via tar to the new locations, but in this case you have to make
> the disk bootable yourself.
> 
> --
>   Les Mikesell
>     les at futuresource.com
> 
> 
> --
> fedora-list mailing list
> fedora-list at redhat.com
> To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

If you only have a handful of machines with exactly identical
hardware, you could probably swap out drives if you would prefer,
especially if you have removable drive bays.  But really for anything
more than about two or three installs, I strongly recommend a
kickstart based install method.  You can do it as basically http or
ftp based.  You have to make sure you don't kill the bandwidth of the
switch or whatever connecting device you are using; make sure it is
decent and not el cheapo hub.  With kickstart you are basically
sending the install to an ip address that you give it, and you can
make all installations identical as far as partition sizes, swap
partition etc.  Make your boot floppy, choose all the same settings
and you are set.

Marc