Le 02/04/2011 00:10, Nico Schottelius a écrit :
Good morning devs,
I'm running a big pool of Linux installations in the ETH Zurich [0] and from time to time I am interested in giving Archlinux a try for a big installation.
But the lack of a very easy automated way to retrieve networking images, like provided with OpenBSD or Debian& variants, makes me drop back (cuni [0] got a list of easily netinstallable Os).
I'm aware that I can download the ISO, grab the kernel + initrd and have it running, but it's a pretty cumbersome approach.
Thus I'd like to discuss whether there is no easy way to provide kernel + initrd in a standard location?
Secondly I'd be interested in seeing a standard way on how to automate the installation, which could probably a wikipage "Archlinux in big environments".
I'm wondering what your opinions are regarding those two topics and whether there'll be some changes mid term that may make archlinux able to be a canditate for automatic installations.
Have a nice evening,
Nico
Hi Tom, I haven't completely understood what you want to do. But it seems you want to install a bunch of computers automatically via PXE and that you already have some framework to do it for multiple distributions. This latter constrain isn't one of mine: I am managing a small cluster of machines (all x86_64, but not identical machines). Btw we are almost neighbour as I am at the University of Geneva. Over the past few weeks, I tried to implement a simple solution (strongly inspired by Cobbler for Redhat and with the help of Dieter and Gerardo) to install Archlinux automatically. As you mentioned, I also already have a dns/dhcp (dnsmasq) running. So I patched archiso-pxe-server (https://github.com/djgera/archiso-pxe-server) to avoid starting dnsmasq again. For the installation itself, a small web app is serving the AIF script/profile. You can find it here: http://hg.vejnar.org/trapezium The 2011.03.23 version of the iso isn't yet a functional version. But normally the next one should be (I submitted a patch yesterday to fix I hope the last bug). I will try then to make an effort for documentation. I am sure this isn't the best solution but it is very simple, plays well with the existing archiso/AIF architecture. But you seem to have some more experience and I will be happy to test if you submit patches. Charles