[Sheflug] Installing loads of Dbians

[José Luis Gómez Dans <j.l.gomez-dans [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,
    We expect to be installing loads of debian boxen next week. Since
they are all to be networked and are not suppossed to do something
particularly clever (well, apart from networky stuff), I had thought
about installing a woody system, with a customised 2.4 kernel
(they will be used for network testing, and we might end up using UML
in the long run, but that's not my problem. Yet :D).

    I am aware of FAI. If I undertand it correctly, we get the network
wired up, get a machine to act as a server, have a local package
mirror, run tftp, so the "clients" get a kernel and a root FS by NFS,
so that the automated installation can be done.

    The clients are booted and the ethernet addresses are "sniffed"
off the wire.

    The manual seems rather long (read: it needs a fair bit of work
:D). There's also systemimager, but I have heard less about this. It
seems simpler (you create a full system, and it then dumps this on the
clients, changing network configuration).

    Anyone heard of other methods, have other experiences which might
be useful?

    Thanks
    Jose
-- 
José L Gómez Dans			PhD student
Tel: +44 114 222 5582			Radar & Communications Group
FAX; +44 870 132 2990			Department of Electronic Engineering
					University of Sheffield UK
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