| Rev | Author | # | Line |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | CraigBox | 1 | !! Automatic installation |
| 2 | |||
| 1 | CraigBox | 3 | If you have a lab full of machines, or you have a number of machines that need to be set up with the same configuration (eg: you are building firewalls), you might be interested in a method of automatically installing machines. |
| 4 | |||
| 13 | CraigBox | 5 | !! RedHat Linux & derivatives (RedHatEnterpriseLinux, FedoraCore, CentOs) |
| 1 | CraigBox | 6 | |
| 7 | Automatic installs on Red Hat are made very easy by the fact that [RPM]s do not ask you question when they are installed. Red Hat policy is to shoot first and ask questions later; if a file is going to be overwritten, a new file (file.rpmnew) is written in its place. | ||
| 8 | |||
| 14 | CraigBox | 9 | The 'standard' way to do a Red Hat automatic install is with KickStart. This is a feature that allows you to run ksconfig(8) and generate a configuration file that you can put on a floppy or the network. You then boot a system into anaconda (the Red Hat installer), have it automatically pick up an IP address by DHCP, mount a share for files and start installing based on the configuration file you built with ksconfig. |
| 1 | CraigBox | 10 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 11 | !! [Debian] and derivatives (ie. [Ubuntu]) |
| 1 | CraigBox | 12 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 13 | Since Debian replaced bootfloppies with debian-installer in Sarge, you have been able to pre-seed questions in an installation, in the same fashion as a Kickstart file. The best source of information is the [Debian Installer manual|http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed] - note the changes at the bottom of the file between sarge/warty-breezy and etch/dapper-onwards. There is also a section on [automatic installation in the Debian manual|http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch04s07.html#automatic-install], and a [sample preseed file|http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/example-preseed.txt] |
| 11 | CraigBox | 14 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 15 | You can use the preseed file manually, specified on the CD boot command line, via floppy/network, or you can burn it to the CD for a totally automated installation. See UbuntuRemastering for information on this. |
| 1 | CraigBox | 16 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 17 | [FAI (Fully Automated Installation)|http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/] is another system for doing lots of similar installs off an NFS server. |
| 10 | CraigBox | 18 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 19 | ! Manual "automated installation" of a Debian system |
| 10 | CraigBox | 20 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 21 | If you are quite happy to do a base install of Debian manually (which is pretty quick), and just want to restore a system to the state it was in: |
| 10 | CraigBox | 22 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 23 | <pre> |
| 24 | apt-get install debconf-utils | ||
| 25 | dpkg --get-selections | gzip -9 > $BACKUP_DIR/dpkg-selections | ||
| 26 | debconf-get-selections | gzip -9 > $BACKUP_DIR/debconf-selections | ||
| 27 | </pre> | ||
| 11 | CraigBox | 28 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 29 | Then, on your freshly installed system, you can do: |
| 7 | CraigBox | 30 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 31 | <pre> |
| 32 | debconf-set-selections < debconf-selections | ||
| 33 | dpkg --set-selections < dpkg-selections | ||
| 34 | apt-get -u dselect-upgrade | ||
| 35 | </pre> | ||
| 7 | CraigBox | 36 | |
| 13 | CraigBox | 37 | This will install all the packages you had installed on the previous system, and preseeds the answers to al of the debconf questions you would otherwise have been asked. |
| 38 | |||
| 39 | !! Cross distro ([Debian], [SUSE], [Fedora], [Ubuntu]) | ||
| 40 | |||
| 41 | [InstaLinux|http://instalinux.com/] asks you some questions about your network and then builds you a small downloadable automatically-installing CD boot image. | ||
| 42 | |||
| 43 | ----- | ||
| 44 | This page is part of our LinuxInstallationNotes. |
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