Hello Folks,
Sent the code to Steven -- Well there is not really any rpm packages to make -- there is a need for a new stage2 image in the base directory and a new loader in the initial initrd image used by RedHat (This due to clear bugs -- or am I out flying maybe).... Maybe I can rpm it -- as a new anaconda package need to check it out but its definitly not on the top of my priority list.
The normal rpm based installation time (just barebone system) was around 20 - 25 min. It's to be noted that the build time of nine minutes was to fully configured system. The build time for a bare bone RedHat installation was more in the five - six minutes range. I have developed a system that is self configuring the server depending on what netgroups its part of. Basically embedded in the config files (such as
e.g. passwd, syslog, inittab, http.conf etc..) there is statements such as:
if InNetgroup("production")
your config for production boxes
if InNetgroup("development")
your config for development boxes
or for e.g. startup scripts
if InNetgroup("apache")
/etc/init.d/httpd start
All of the config files and a number of scripts for the server is handeled this way. The files are kept centraly and distributed out to all system. At distribution time or install time (as in building a server) the files are parsed and installed by a special program. This way all config files are kept in one place and you can easily manage all your boxes. The nine minutes build time I'm refering to is with installing all those files managed by the system (and that is a lot of files since virtually every config file and all startup scripts are managed -- i..e more or less the whole etc directory).
Anyways it's pretty practical, all customization I need to do to the bare system fileimage is to have NIS enabled and to run the install program after NIS is started the first time.. but this is beyond the scope of AI....
Cheers The Frozen one....
On 6/5/06, Steven Augart <saugart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 16:05 -0700, Frozen River wrote:
> Sorry folks -- looks like my code is to big for the mailing list.
I am willing to put your code up at my personal web site,
http://augart.com. My hosting company has multiple independent
connections to the backbone. Also, if we do it that way, then the only
people who have to download it are the ones who are interested; when we
post it to the list, then effectively everyone has to download it.
Further, if you've prepared any RPM packages with the new code, I'll be
glad to put those up as well.
What was the installation time on these servers before you knocked it
down to nine minutes? That will help me evaluate whether it's worth
exploring this for use in the process here at Mazu Networks, where we
build our network security appliances. For the next release, we'll be
using a custom boot CD that I make using a slightly modified version of
Anaconda. (I'll post a pointer to the diffs and to a writeup on the
process of making it, once I've finished making it work on more hardware
platforms. -- we have several here at Mazu.)
I am glad that you wrote this. Thanks for being a good citizen and
offering it back to the community.
--Steven
--
Steven Augart
Mazu Networks
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
