From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 27 09:31:37 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: current@FreeBSD.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CCB4116A41F for ; Tue, 27 Dec 2005 09:31:37 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from norgaard@locolomo.org) Received: from strange.daemonsecurity.com (59.Red-81-33-11.staticIP.rima-tde.net [81.33.11.59]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 698D043D58 for ; Tue, 27 Dec 2005 09:31:30 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from norgaard@locolomo.org) Received: from [172.24.8.84] (generic.ATOSORIGIN.ES [212.170.156.200]) by strange.daemonsecurity.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2EB2F2E047; Tue, 27 Dec 2005 10:31:28 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <43B109E9.8050509@locolomo.org> Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 10:31:21 +0100 From: Erik Norgaard User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (X11/20051214) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Dario Freni References: <439AE13D.1040800@locolomo.org> <20051217225939.GD9343@cvs.freesbie.org> In-Reply-To: <20051217225939.GD9343@cvs.freesbie.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Contacts for project idea list X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 09:31:37 -0000 Dario Freni wrote: > This can be intepreted/implemented in many ways. As Alexander said, > this can be a "dummy" installer which formats, partitions and install > over the network. > > In my todo list, instead, there's (since at least one year) the idea > to implement this with FreeSBIE and BSD Installer. BSD Installer was > already ported to FreeSBIE one year ago, and the actual version of BSD > Installer works with the new version of the FreeSBIE toolkit. > > It can be nice to have a dedicated version of FreeSBIE which ships > with a dhcp server on it and can act as a PXE server, allowing clients > to netboot into BSD Installer. If you agree, we can start working on > it. Merry Christmas - Sorry for not getting back on this before. My experiene is that PXEBoot actually works quite well: It is fairly easy to create a memory disk that can be fetched with tftp. The only thing not included in the base system is a dhcp server. So, including such a setup on a FreeSBIE live CD should be trivial, the most non-trivial task I can think of is configuring dhcp for the user. However, work can be done to make it easier to use PXEBoot to install multiple systems: I know I am treading into a minefield now - sorry! 1) My idea is to exploit the install scripts. Normally the install script is in the root of the root device, but it is cumbersome to update the script on a memory disk. Instead, it would be great to have the script on the server and just specify a path in eg loader.rc. The install script should then be fetched with tftp. 2) It would be great if it was posible to create a valid install script from sysinstall - I know this is a completely different project, but maybe the idea could propagate :) The point is that, this way it would be easier for the administrator to save a system configuration and clone his systems. This would be really useful for those maintaining a large server farm or a large number of workstations, also this would be useful for recovery. Of the two items above, I think that 1) is within the scope of the proposed project, and maybe also the easier part :) Just my thoughts on where I would like to go with this project. Cheers, Erik -- Ph: +34.666334818 web: www.locolomo.org S/MIME Certificate: www.daemonsecurity.com/ca/8D03551FFCE04F06.crt Subject ID: 9E:AA:18:E6:94:7A:91:44:0A:E4:DD:87:73:7F:4E:82:E7:08:9C:72 Fingerprint: 5B:D5:1E:3E:47:E7:EC:1C:4C:C8:3A:19:CC:AE:14:F5:DF:18:0F:B9