Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:19:11 +0000 From: "Wolff, Nicholas (Nick)" <nwolff@oar.net> To: John Nielsen <lists@jnielsen.net>, freebsd-current Current <freebsd-current@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Devops question: unattended installs of FreeBSD? Message-ID: <D0D9B0BC.14942%wolff.261@osu.edu> In-Reply-To: <E5F0283B-56D8-4E48-81AB-1FCD3D49E9B4@jnielsen.net> References: <CAG=rPVfkHND3djpTDZBWzTs5u%2BNd-ijT_3ZvgYK859LHqkv6BQ@mail.gmail.com> <E5F0283B-56D8-4E48-81AB-1FCD3D49E9B4@jnielsen.net>
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Where moving to using a medium sized(~100 boxes) freebsd install base to pc-sysinstall and a very simple deployment script. We were on a custom sysinstall derivative so maybe that what making it feel so magical but I really like pc-sysinstall. We are relatively early in the process of deployment so there still may be some tweaking but pc-sysinstall seemed really simple and easily adaptable. Now this is for physical hardware not the cloud so I don=B9t know if there is any difference there that may effec= t you. Hope that helps, =8BNick On 1/12/15, 3:12 PM, "John Nielsen" <lists@jnielsen.net> wrote: >On Jan 12, 2015, at 12:24 PM, Craig Rodrigues <rodrigc@freebsd.org> wrote: > >> I had a devops person who is familiar with setting up hundreds of >> Linux nodes in cloud environment ask me what is the best way >> to do unattended installs in a cloud environment. >> Linux has kickstart installs, which are quite useful and popular. >>=20 >> What is the equivalent in FreeBSD? >>=20 >> In the sysinstall days, the sysinstall.cfg config file could be created >> which drove large parts of the installer. Now that sysinstall is gone, >> what is the alternative? Searching the web, I found two answers: >>=20 >> (1) Write your own script >> (2) Use pc-sysinstall from the PC-BSD project >>=20 >>http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Creating_an_Automated_Installation_with_p >>c-sysinstall/10.0/en > >bsdinstall(8) does support scripted installations, see the man page. >Writing your own script is also viable, or a combination of the two. I >don't have experience with scripting bsdinstall as I tend to script my >own. > >Vultr.com has a script that does a full installation when you first bring >up a FreeBSD VM. At $work, I maintain a script which creates FreeBSD >template disk images which are then cloned for new VMs. There are also >now make targets in the base system to build VM-suitable disk images (but >I don't recall what they are off the top of my head). > >> I am trying to work with a devops team who is very experienced >> with setting up Linux environments in the cloud. Based on the available >> docs, >> it is not clear to non-FreeBSD experts how to accomplish similar things >> with FreeBSD. > >I'd be happy to provide more specific suggestions if needed. It really >depends on how fully automated you want things to be and how much >customization you want to include, as well as what you have available in >the install environment. If you're installing on live VMs then you first >have to get them booted. A custom ISO or MFS image is probably the >simplest for that, though PXE is also an option. (Actually, serving an >mfsBSD image via PXE is pretty straightforward.) > >Then: > >Set up the network if it will be needed for the install and is not >already done. >Set up the disk(s), partition(s), filesystem(s), etc >Mount >Install distribution sets. Here's what I use for that: >#!/bin/sh >#... >DISTS=3D"base kernel lib32 doc games" >for dist in ${DISTS}; do > fetch -o - "${BASEURL}/${dist}.txz" | tar -xJ --exclude >kernel/\*.symbols -C ${MOUNTPOINT} -f - >done >#... > >Run freebsd-update >Populate /etc/fstab >Set a root password >Make sure you can log in to the new system (if SSH is needed then either >create a non-root user or enable root login in sshd_config (not ideal)) >Populate /etc/rc.conf >Run tzsetup or similar >Install 3rd-party packages >Configure bootcode > >> By the way, I would be very interested in hearing from people who have >> experience >> in installing, configuring, and upgrading hundreds or even thousands of >> FreeBSD >> nodes in devops and cloud environments. For people who are not FreeBSD >> experts, >> but who are Linux devops experts, is it easy to do, or is there a lot of >> custom scripts which need to be written? > >A few tools translate over more or less directly, such as Ansible and >SaltStack. Having a uniform and automated installation procedure (like it >sounds like you're going for) and front-loading a lot of your >customization in to that is a good starting point. Building your own >packages to distribute/update configuration files or run scripts where >needed is also helpful. Install that package as part of the initial >system setup then have it update itself (or push out a cron job, or do >mass updates when needed via Salt, etc). > >Just some ideas. I don't think it's any harder/easier than running lots >of Linux servers, just different in some ways. If you want custom >functionality then you'll probably need some custom scripts. :) > >JN >_______________________________________________ >freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list >http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current >To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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