Re: AI – Anaconda Image

[Frozen River]

Hello Folks,

Sent the code to Steven -- Well there is not really any rpm packages to make
-- there is a need for a new stage2 image in the base directory and a new
loader in the initial initrd image used by RedHat (This due to clear bugs --
or am I out flying maybe).... Maybe I can rpm it -- as a new anaconda
package need to check it out but its definitly not on the top of my priority
list.

The normal rpm based installation time (just barebone system) was around 20
- 25 min. It's to be noted that the build time of nine minutes was to fully
configured system. The build time for a bare bone RedHat installation was
more in the five - six minutes range. I have developed a system that is self
configuring the server depending on what netgroups its part of. Basically
embedded in the config files (such as e.g. passwd, syslog, inittab,
http.conf etc..) there is statements such as:

if InNetgroup("production")
your config for production boxes
 if InNetgroup("development")
your config for development boxes

or for e.g. startup scripts

if InNetgroup("apache")
/etc/init.d/httpd start


All of the config files and a number of scripts for the server is handeled
this way. The files are kept centraly and distributed out to all system.
At distribution time or install time (as in building a server) the files are
parsed and installed by a special program. This way all config files are
kept in one place and you can easily manage all your boxes. The nine minutes
build time I'm refering to is with installing all those files managed by the
system (and that is a lot of files since virtually every config file and all
startup scripts are managed -- i..e more or less the whole etc directory).

Anyways it's pretty practical, all customization I need to do to the bare
system fileimage is to have NIS enabled and to run the install program after
NIS is started the first time.. but this is beyond the scope of AI....


Cheers The Frozen one....









On 6/5/06, Steven Augart <saugart at mazunetworks.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 16:05 -0700, Frozen River wrote:
> > Sorry folks -- looks like my code is to big for the mailing list.
>
> I am willing to put your code up at my personal web site,
> http://augart.com.   My hosting company has multiple independent
> connections to the backbone.  Also, if we do it that way, then the only
> people who have to download it are the ones who are interested; when we
> post it to the list, then effectively everyone has to download it.
>
> Further, if you've prepared any RPM packages with the new code, I'll be
> glad to put those up as well.
>
> What was the installation time on these servers before you knocked it
> down to nine minutes?  That will help me evaluate whether it's worth
> exploring this for use in the process here at Mazu Networks, where we
> build our network security appliances.  For the next release, we'll be
> using a custom boot CD that I make using a slightly modified version of
> Anaconda.  (I'll post a pointer to the diffs and to a writeup on the
> process of making it, once I've finished making it work on more hardware
> platforms. -- we have several here at Mazu.)
>
> I am glad that you wrote this.  Thanks for being a good citizen and
> offering it back to the community.
>
> --Steven
>
> --
> Steven Augart
> Mazu Networks
> Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
>
>
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