On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 12:22:54AM +0100, Pablo Iranzo Gómez enlightened us: > I've been playing arround with http://unattended.sourceforge.net/ > > That proyect contains some files, between them, a kernel and a > initrd which contain a small linux system which mounts via samba a > ntinstall/install resource as drive Z: on DOSEMU/Non Linux and as /z on > Linux from where it gets the whole files it needs (perl, etc) as well as > automatization scripts. > > After having all information ready (asks for partitioning, > formatting, profile, etc) it just launches a "dosemu" session which does > the non-linux install part (the one where it get files from network > share), which, indeed, is the "problematic one", as on normal systems, > you'll require network drivers, etc which usually linux has incorporated. > > After first copy-and-install part, system reboots, installs > operating system, and at the end starts again mounting samba share and > continues doing the post-installation. > > Integration with cobbler could be: > > - cobbler check information regarding the share for samba pointing > to standard folder for cobbler "import"'s (this utility want's OS in "os/" > of the mount point > > - Profile with referenced kernel and initrd for starting the > "unattended" system > > - Unattended profile creation from defined kickstart dunno what's > the schema for Debian/SuSE profiles, as I did no tested this, so that may > not differ so much. > > This could enable multi-os installations as previously said on > this list: > > - First start kickstart for partitioning (/boot, vfat, and LVM) > - Change profile to Non-Linux installer > - Install Non-Linux on vfat just formatting contents > - Trigger change profile to Linux installer > - Install linux on the /boot and LVM and install bootloader just > ormatting contents > > At the end you will have one system with multiboot and two > profiles for Linux and Non-linux that will just install on available > partition (some kind of partitioning test will be nice to check if > partition schema does not contain required partition, and then, change > Profile to partitioning one and return back to this (¿cobbler feature for > "toggling profile***"?) > > ?Has anyone played with this? > > Regards > Pablo > > PD: The point in using a dosemu system to install another os could open > the door to manage the installation of any other OS with DOS-based > installer, or even more complex installations based on specific virtual > machines/emulators that just prepare hard drive for other-os installer > > > > ***: Flip your current profile to another one, then change it back to that > profile when final cobbler step is done. > I have been using unattended for several years now to deploy Windows machines. It uses a dosboot or linuxboot+DOSEMU method to feed the winnt.exe installer an answerfile and install the system as "unattendedly" as you like. There are limitations to this boot method, however. I believe it is currently limited to 32-bit OSes and Vista is not supported since they removed the 16-bit winnt.exe installer. There is a fork called unattended-gui which uses a slightly different install method (still linux based) which I believe supports Vista and 64-bit OSes. unattended-gui was compatible with the directory structure of unattended for a while, but I believe recently began requiring use of its own directory structure. AFAIK, both install methods are PXE bootable. The way I do my configuration is via a MySQL database which the installer connects to to fill in the blanks of an unattended.txt template file. Technically, I don't see why support for this couldn't be added to cobbler. If it were me looking at doing the work, I'd probably start with unattended-gui and work from there. unattended (while I love it and still use it) is mostly dead. There are a couple folks still around with CVS commit access that keep the install scripts updated, but there isn't a lot of movement on improving the infrastructure bits much. There has been more interest lately, but with the lack of support for Vista and 64-bit, I think folks who need those have been migrating to unattended-gui. I've CC'd Mario Gzuk, creator of unattended-gui, to see if he might have any more insight. I've not used unattended-gui yet, so I don't know if it is still using the same config.pl method to fill in the template as the original unattended, or if it uses another method. Matt -- Matt Hyclak Department of Mathematics Department of Social Work Ohio University (740) 593-1263 _______________________________________________ et-mgmt-tools mailing list et-mgmt-tools@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/et-mgmt-tools
