[arch-releng] Archlinux automated via PXE

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Sat, 2 Apr 2011 10:19:57 +0200
Nico Schottelius <nico-archlinux-releng at schottelius.org> wrote:

> Hey Dieter,
> 
> Dieter Plaetinck [Sat, Apr 02, 2011 at 09:43:31AM +0200]:
> > On Sat, 2 Apr 2011 01:54:12 +0200
> > Nico Schottelius <nico-archlinux-releng at schottelius.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > Simo Leone [Fri, Apr 01, 2011 at 04:40:21PM -0700]:
> > > > I added a few things to make serial console work over PXE/IPMI recently...
> > > > so at least you can do manual installs that way.
> > > 
> > > That's probably another good step into the right direction!
> > > 
> > > What about logging to a remote tcp/udp port and/or syslog support?
> > > 
> > > In the end, the killer for using an OS in a large infrastructure
> > > is automated installations though, not only logging :-)
> > > 
> > > Cheers,
> > > 
> > > Nico
> > 
> > You should be able to do what you want with:
> > https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Archiso_as_pxe_server
> > and recent images from http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/
> > where you can pass a script argument to the kernel which will execute any script (like say.. an aif automatic installation)
> 
> That's right, but it's pretty cumbersome to retrieve a whole iso image
> to do that job.
> 
> Besides that, in a large infrastructure dhcp/dns is usually already
> existing and thus the script does way too much.
> 
> Indeed, if you'd added the copy_files() part into the release process,
> people who want to have the pxe installation method could just grep
> the 4 needed files and would be happy.
> 
> That's what other Unices do and in my opinion should be simple to
> implement once at Archlinux and then have nobody care about it
> again.

well, I don't have a large infrastructure sitting at home, nor do I have the time to figure out and implement a feature I don't use; I already have a hard enough time doing all the other releng stuff.

If you want to make things better, I welcome contributions and will gladly assist you where I can.
But this kind of stuff needs to come from someone who actually uses it and can test it.

Dieter