CentOS - Feb 2010 - best practice: how to setup a central "network installation server"?

Hi,

I want to setup a central installation server, but haven't done this before,
so I want to find out what would be best practices for this?

The server I have already runs as a central repo, which is updated from one
or our local centos mirrors, and the other CentOS servers (both i386 & x64),
as well as CentOS VPS's get their updates from this server.

But, now I want to allow a client to perform a quick network installation,
using either a netbood CD, or preferably with the server's network bootrom.
I understand this can be done with bootp, or am I on the wrong track?

the server is a general file server and also acts as our in-office internet
gateway, and has Webmin installed for convenience sake. I don't know if this
is of any use?

Generally we would be (re)installing CentOS servers & desktops, but I guess
it could be useful for other distro's like Fedora Core / Debian / FreeBSD? /
etc. What would be a good option to go for, or could someone point me to a
good documentation? Doing a google search I found a lot of instructions on
how to perform a network installation on the client PC's, but not how to
configure the server. Maybe I used the wrong key words?

-- 
Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
SoftDux

Website: http://www.SoftDux.com
Technical Blog: http://Blog.SoftDux.com
Office: 087 805 9573
Cell: 082 554 7532
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2010/2/18 Rudi Ahlers <Rudi at softdux.com>:
> Hi,
> I want to setup a central installation server, but haven't done this
before,
> so I want to find out what would be best practices for this?
> The server I have already runs as a central repo, which is updated from one
> or our local centos mirrors, and the other CentOS servers (both i386 &
x64),
> as well as CentOS VPS's get their updates from this server.
> But, now I want to allow a client to perform a quick network installation,
> using either a netbood CD, or?preferably?with the server's network
bootrom.
> I understand this can be done with bootp, or am I on the wrong track?
> the server is a general file server and also acts as our in-office internet
> gateway, and has Webmin installed for convenience sake. I don't know if
this
> is of any use?
> Generally we would be (re)installing CentOS servers & desktops, but I
guess
> it could be useful for other distro's like Fedora Core / Debian /
FreeBSD? /
> etc. What would be a good option to go for, or could someone point me to a
> good documentation? Doing a google search I found a lot of instructions on
> how to perform a network installation on the client PC's, but not how
to
> configure the server. Maybe I used the wrong key words?

See the kickstart at :
http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.2/Installation_Guide/s1-kickstart2-howuse.html

--
Eero

Am 18.02.2010 10:00, schrieb Rudi Ahlers:
> Hi, 
>
> I want to setup a central installation server, but haven't done this
> before, so I want to find out what would be best practices for this?
>
>


https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/




Rainer

Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> Hi, 
> 
> I want to setup a central installation server, but haven't done this 
> before, so I want to find out what would be best practices for this?
> 
> The server I have already runs as a central repo, which is updated from 
> one or our local centos mirrors, and the other CentOS servers (both i386 
> & x64), as well as CentOS VPS's get their updates from this server.
> 
> But, now I want to allow a client to perform a quick network 
> installation, using either a netbood CD, or preferably with the
server's
> network bootrom. I understand this can be done with bootp, or am I on 
> the wrong track?
> 
> the server is a general file server and also acts as our in-office 
> internet gateway, and has Webmin installed for convenience sake. I
don't
> know if this is of any use?
> 
> Generally we would be (re)installing CentOS servers & desktops, but I 
> guess it could be useful for other distro's like Fedora Core / Debian /
> FreeBSD? / etc. What would be a good option to go for, or could someone 
> point me to a good documentation? Doing a google search I found a lot of 
> instructions on how to perform a network installation on the client 
> PC's, but not how to configure the server. Maybe I used the wrong key
words?
> 
> -- 
Hi

I'm starting to play with Cobbler. Besides to central installation 
server, it also supports other distributions, like SuSE and Debian 
(Ubuntu?).

https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/

Regards

mg.

Hi Rudi,

Rudi Ahlers sent a missive on?2010-02-18:
> Hi,
> 
> I want to setup a central installation server, but haven't done this 
> before, so I want to find out what would be best practices for this?
> 
> The server I have already runs as a central repo, which is updated 
> from one or our local centos mirrors, and the other CentOS servers 
> (both i386 & x64), as well as CentOS VPS's get their updates from
this
server.
> 
> But, now I want to allow a client to perform a quick network 
> installation, using either a netbood CD, or preferably with the 
> server's network bootrom. I understand this can be done with bootp, or 
> am I on the wrong track?
> 
> the server is a general file server and also acts as our in-office 
> internet gateway, and has Webmin installed for convenience sake. I 
> don't know if this is of any use?
> 
> Generally we would be (re)installing CentOS servers & desktops, but I 
> guess it could be useful for other distro's like Fedora Core / Debian 
> / FreeBSD? / etc. What would be a good option to go for, or could 
> someone point me to a good documentation? Doing a google search I 
> found a lot of instructions on how to perform a network installation 
> on the client PC's, but not how to configure the server. Maybe I used 
> the wrong key words?
>
I'm not suggesting that this is "best practice" but this works in
my
environment for unattended installations or reinstallations.

1) The first thing that I did to get this to work was to have a web server
hold the distribution of Centos needed. This was accessible to the servers
that I was building using a boot CD and specifying network install.
2) I then automated this installation using kickstart files also held on the
web server.
3) I then setup a PXE boot server using tftpd and configured the server to
be built to boot via PXE (using dhcp options to point to the correct pxe
boot server and boot file) and then to connect to web server to built
itself.
4) I also use koan on existing systems to enable me to rebuild them
remotely. Using koan I am able to reboot the machine and it will then pxe
boot (without the need to have bios set) and complete the installation.

I hope that this points you in the right direction.

Rgds

Simon.

Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> Hi, 
> 
> I want to setup a central installation server, but haven't done this 
> before, so I want to find out what would be best practices for this?
> 
> The server I have already runs as a central repo, which is updated from 
> one or our local centos mirrors, and the other CentOS servers (both i386 
> & x64), as well as CentOS VPS's get their updates from this server.
> 
> But, now I want to allow a client to perform a quick network 
> installation, using either a netbood CD, or preferably with the
server's
> network bootrom. I understand this can be done with bootp, or am I on 
> the wrong track?
> 
> the server is a general file server and also acts as our in-office 
> internet gateway, and has Webmin installed for convenience sake. I
don't
> know if this is of any use?
> 
> Generally we would be (re)installing CentOS servers & desktops, but I 
> guess it could be useful for other distro's like Fedora Core / Debian /
> FreeBSD? / etc. What would be a good option to go for, or could someone 
> point me to a good documentation? Doing a google search I found a lot of 
> instructions on how to perform a network installation on the client 
> PC's, but not how to configure the server. Maybe I used the wrong key
words?
If you want to do disk cloning (any OS, including windows) or PXE boot into a 
running, look at drbl and clonezilla http://drbl.sourceforge.net/.  You can find
a yum repository for Centos in the list at http://drbl.sourceforge.net/one4all/.

It has a menu configuration that I think can be made to boot into an installer 
but I've never used it that way since our machines are mostly identical and
a
lot of them are windows based.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com