From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 7 12:02:23 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1761A1065835 for ; Thu, 7 May 2009 12:02:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from mail.potentialtech.com (internet.potentialtech.com [66.167.251.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 118878FC79 for ; Thu, 7 May 2009 12:01:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from working (pool-72-95-226-5.pitbpa.ftas.verizon.net [72.95.226.5]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.potentialtech.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 52F0EEBC0A; Thu, 7 May 2009 08:01:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 08:01:57 -0400 From: Bill Moran To: Warren Guy Message-Id: <20090507080157.93c8e5ee.wmoran@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <4A025F42.50308@calorieking.com> References: <4A025F42.50308@calorieking.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.5.0 (GTK+ 2.12.11; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Developing and maintaining a rapidly deployable image of an installed system X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 12:02:48 -0000 Warren Guy wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > I'm just wondering if there is an established best practice for > developing and maintaining a rapidly deployable image of an installed > FreeBSD system? > > If anyone can point me towards documentation or any other resources that > might be of use I would greatly appreciate it. One of the tools we've been using extensively is FreeBSD's jail system. Especially with the ezjail port, it's pretty easy to have a backup tarball of each "system" that can then be easily deployed to another server if needed. It also makes it easy to migrate "servers" to other hardware in order to do upgrades, or re-balance workload if one particular piece of hardware is getting over or under utilized. The host system is a very basic install -- mostly just give it an IP and add users for the administrators. All the ports and details of their configs are in the individual jails. It's much more efficient than using something like VMware, which has horrific performance penalties. -- Bill Moran http://www.potentialtech.com