From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 21 22:11:09 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 440E616A427 for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2005 22:11:09 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from djh@nebcorp.com) Received: from ratchet.nebcorp.com (ratchet.nebcorp.com [205.217.153.72]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D634843D58 for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2005 22:10:54 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from djh@nebcorp.com) Received: by ratchet.nebcorp.com (Postfix, from userid 1014) id B0D1AD9825; Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:10:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:10:54 -0700 From: Danny Howard To: Dan Mack Message-ID: <20050721221054.GQ24353@ratchet.nebcorp.com> References: <42DFF582.1050406@unixforge.net> <20050721150151.R7966@coco.macktronics.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20050721150151.R7966@coco.macktronics.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Loop: djhoward@uiuc.edu Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, "Eli K. Breen" Subject: Re: Machine Replication X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 22:11:09 -0000 On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 03:04:01PM -0500, Dan Mack wrote: > > > Is there a jumpstart (solaris), kickstart (redhat linux), roboinst (irix), > or ignite (hpux) like auto-installer for BSD? No. g4u and a script might do a good job for you if your hardware is mostly similar. > If there was, then I wouldn't image the disk at all, I'd instead setup up > custom network images that I could blast to any system just by pxebooting > it. I'm not sure if it is possible with FreeBSD though, anyone? It is possible. I have done it before. I had some of those funky VA Linux machines which need the dongle boxes to support video and keyboard. I had them booting from hard drive or DHCP, and if I wanted to re-image a machine I just had to clobber the MBR and reboot. :) Setting up the disk partition with sysinstall was the biggest bitch. If I were to set up a system like this again, I might do something with g4u to set out the basic systems, with an rc script that can pull a post-install recipe which does things like growfs /usr/local, and do machine-specific customization. Then PUBLISH your work before you get laid off. (That is how my last efforts were concluded.) Cheers, -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com/