>>>>> "Jeremy" == Jeremy Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Jeremy> Autoinstall (Red Hat's kickstart) Jeremy> This is also something fairly important. We need this as we do a Jeremy> lot of mass installs. The best way to do that that I've found so far is to set up a box with two removable hard drive racks, install and _configure_ everything on one drive, then use `cfdisk', `mkswap', and `mke2fs' to partition and format the second drive. Use `cpio' from a script to copy everything from the master drive to the copy, then run the appropriate Lilo command to make that copy bootable. You can then mount it in another machine and it's ready to go. You have to filter some things out when you copy. See below. Another way to do it would be to create a tar archive, useing "find | grep -v -f exclude-patterns | cpio", name it `base2_2.tgz' and put it in place on an intranet web server where you can point the Debian installer's netfetch... Then you can install several machines at once over the LAN... in theory. This is just a starter... I have not done this much yet myself, since I don't have extra hardware to work with and really need to spend my time on reading and studies. I have done it from drive to drive using `cpio' to install the filesystem snapshot, but have not done it by naming a tar format archive as base and using the debian-boot installer. It might just work. NFS mounting the server directory where the `cpio' or `tar' archive sits might work fine also. You could burn a bootable CD with the archive on it, and on the bootable's root.bin, have `sfdisk' etc. and a script that automaticly partitions, formats, and installs the archive. It might be simpler to try the netfetch/dbootstrap approach though. You can make a copy of the system like this... it will create a `cpio' archive... substitute `ustar' for `crc' to make a `tar' compatible archive. RTFM's... you're on your own. 8<-------------------------------------------->8 #!/bin/bash find / -print0 | grep --invert-match --extended-regexp --null-data --file=/root/make-tarball.exclude-patterns | cpio --create --format=crc --null --reset-access-time --block-size=10 | gzip --best > /tmp/system-snapshot_$(date +%Y.%m.%d).cpio.crc.gz 8<-------------------------------------------->8 You may need to tweak this some. (NO WARRANTEE) "make-tarball.exclude-patterns" 8<-------------------------------------------->8 ^/proc/.* ^/tmp/.* ^/lost+found ^/boot/lost+found ^/var/cache/apache/.* ^/var/cache/apt/.*\.deb ^/var/log/.*\.log ^/var/log/\(amanda\|apache\|gdm\|ksymoops\|mailman\|news\|sendfile\|wu-ftpd\)/.* ^/var/log/\(syslog\|smb\|nmb\|messages\|mail\|lpr\|debug\|dmesg\).* ^/var/lock/\.LCK.* ^/var/run/.*\.pid ^/var/run/\(ndc\|utmp\) ^/var/samba/.* \.bash_history \.gnome-errors .*~ /\.saves-.* /\.#.* /\.netscape/cache/.* -- Those who do not study Lisp are doomed to reimplement it - Poorly. A few months in the laboratory often saves several hours at the library. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Karl M. Hegbloom)