On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Tom Grace <lists-in at deathbycomputers.co.uk> wrote:> On 20/01/2015 16:29, Ashley M. Kirchner wrote: >> >> So my question is, is there some way do determine via kickstart, what to >> install on that machine based on some criteria, possibly the IP that's >> being assigned to it, or MAC address, or something ... > > If you just want to use kickstart, it would be pretty simple to serve these > via HTTP, and have a simple script in PHP or similar that takes the > requesting IP and uses it to choose which version of the kickstart to serve. > > I would suggest that the "right way" would be to kickstart all your machines > the same way, and then use a configuration management tool (like Puppet or > Chef) to customize them. This approach is likely to be more work, but also > more maintainable in the long run.Or, if you just want the packages that a custom kickstart would install, use a basic kickstart to bring it up, then run your own script (from an nfs mount, scp'd over, pasted into a command line or whatever you might find easier than learning puppet). The script just needs to determine the rest of the packages needed for this particular server and 'yum install ....' them. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Tom: Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into those tools. Mark: Yes, they are using pxeboot. Right now when they boot up, the pxe config offers two options, 32- and 64bit. Are you suggesting I create multiple entries that one selects based on what the machine is going to be? Is there a way to have this done automatically so I don't have to physically have to do that for each machine, but rather turn the thing on and have it determine what needs to get installed on that particular machine? Les: I was hoping for some way to have it all automated so if for some reason I'm not in the building, I can instruct someone else to reboot, pick the kickstart option in the pxeboot menu (be it a web, mail, db, or user server) and a few minutes later have a working machine without them needing to do anything else afterwards. Mirroring the data files from backup is a single step that can be done by any monkey, it's the configuration, or the manual selecting of a script to run, something they can easily screw up, that's I want to avoid. On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 9:51 AM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Tom Grace > <lists-in at deathbycomputers.co.uk> wrote: > > On 20/01/2015 16:29, Ashley M. Kirchner wrote: > >> > >> So my question is, is there some way do determine via kickstart, what to > >> install on that machine based on some criteria, possibly the IP that's > >> being assigned to it, or MAC address, or something ... > > > > If you just want to use kickstart, it would be pretty simple to serve > these > > via HTTP, and have a simple script in PHP or similar that takes the > > requesting IP and uses it to choose which version of the kickstart to > serve. > > > > I would suggest that the "right way" would be to kickstart all your > machines > > the same way, and then use a configuration management tool (like Puppet > or > > Chef) to customize them. This approach is likely to be more work, but > also > > more maintainable in the long run. > > Or, if you just want the packages that a custom kickstart would > install, use a basic kickstart to bring it up, then run your own > script (from an nfs mount, scp'd over, pasted into a command line or > whatever you might find easier than learning puppet). The script just > needs to determine the rest of the packages needed for this particular > server and 'yum install ....' them. > > -- > Les Mikesell > lesmikesell at gmail.com > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > >
On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Ashley M. Kirchner <ashley at pcraft.com> wrote:> Tom: Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into those tools. > > Mark: Yes, they are using pxeboot. Right now when they boot up, the pxe > config offers two options, 32- and 64bit. Are you suggesting I create > multiple entries that one selects based on what the machine is going to be? > Is there a way to have this done automatically so I don't have to > physically have to do that for each machine, but rather turn the thing on > and have it determine what needs to get installed on that particular > machine? > > Les: I was hoping for some way to have it all automated so if for some > reason I'm not in the building, I can instruct someone else to reboot, pick > the kickstart option in the pxeboot menu (be it a web, mail, db, or user > server) and a few minutes later have a working machine without them needing > to do anything else afterwards. Mirroring the data files from backup is a > single step that can be done by any monkey, it's the configuration, or the > manual selecting of a script to run, something they can easily screw up, > that's I want to avoid.There's always a tradeoff in hiding what is being done between simplifying things and making it completely impossible for anyone else to understand it or fix it if it breaks when you aren't there. I like a little balance between the extremes. Like making the scripts that do the work visible, but including some sanity checking so it won't run on the wrong machine - or anything else that you can guess ahead of time someone might do wrong with it. But you could embed the same thing in a cgi kickstart URL if there is some way it can deduce the right file to deliver or make your db restore process add/configure any missing packages needed at that point. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com