Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 27 Dec 2005 10:31:21 +0100
From:      Erik Norgaard <norgaard@locolomo.org>
To:        Dario Freni <saturnero@freesbie.org>
Cc:        current@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: Contacts for project idea list
Message-ID:  <43B109E9.8050509@locolomo.org>
In-Reply-To: <20051217225939.GD9343@cvs.freesbie.org>
References:  <439AE13D.1040800@locolomo.org> <20051217225939.GD9343@cvs.freesbie.org>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Dario Freni wrote:
> This can be intepreted/implemented in many ways. As Alexander said,
> this can be a "dummy" installer which formats, partitions and install
> over the network.
> 
> In my todo list, instead, there's (since at least one year) the idea
> to implement this with FreeSBIE and BSD Installer. BSD Installer was
> already ported to FreeSBIE one year ago, and the actual version of BSD
> Installer works with the new version of the FreeSBIE toolkit.
> 
> It can be nice to have a dedicated version of FreeSBIE which ships
> with a dhcp server on it and can act as a PXE server, allowing clients
> to netboot into BSD Installer. If you agree, we can start working on
> it.

Merry Christmas - Sorry for not getting back on this before.

My experiene is that PXEBoot actually works quite well: It is fairly 
easy to create a memory disk that can be fetched with tftp. The only 
thing not included in the base system is a dhcp server.

So, including such a setup on a FreeSBIE live CD should be trivial, the 
most non-trivial task I can think of is configuring dhcp for the user.

However, work can be done to make it easier to use PXEBoot to install 
multiple systems: I know I am treading into a minefield now - sorry!

1) My idea is to exploit the install scripts. Normally the install 
script is in the root of the root device, but it is cumbersome to update 
the script on a memory disk.

Instead, it would be great to have the script on the server and just 
specify a path in eg loader.rc. The install script should then be 
fetched with tftp.

2) It would be great if it was posible to create a valid install script 
from sysinstall - I know this is a completely different project, but 
maybe the idea could propagate :)

The point is that, this way it would be easier for the administrator to 
save a system configuration and clone his systems. This would be really 
useful for those maintaining a large server farm or a large number of 
workstations, also this would be useful for recovery.

Of the two items above, I think that 1) is within the scope of the 
proposed project, and maybe also the easier part :)

Just my thoughts on where I would like to go with this project.

Cheers, Erik
-- 
Ph: +34.666334818                                  web: www.locolomo.org
S/MIME Certificate: www.daemonsecurity.com/ca/8D03551FFCE04F06.crt
Subject ID:  9E:AA:18:E6:94:7A:91:44:0A:E4:DD:87:73:7F:4E:82:E7:08:9C:72
Fingerprint: 5B:D5:1E:3E:47:E7:EC:1C:4C:C8:3A:19:CC:AE:14:F5:DF:18:0F:B9



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?43B109E9.8050509>