another great tool for maintaining systems is puppet. we use system image to get a base image on the system then puppet to configure the system.
Makes for easy upgrades. just reimage the system and let puppet put everything back on the system. works great if you do all your package adds etc via puppet On 7/15/07, Thomas Krause <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Hello, > > > > I recently became the administrator of a small school. The school has > basically a single computer room with about 30 computers and another dozen > computers distributed in different class rooms. Since I'm doing this job on > my free time I want to minimize the amount of time I have to spent, while > still keeping all computers working in a good state. The main tasks I have > to perform regularly are: > > > > - Adding a new feature/program to all clients in the school or > changing the existing configuration > > - Restore a client to a working state (often boot-problems or other > problems caused by pupils turning the power off without proper shutdown, > etc) > > > > Most of the computers have the same hardware, but not all of them. Also some > (2-3) of the clients are currently diskless and are booting via PXE and > mounting their file systems directly from an NFS share. > > > > I don't want to run the clients as stupid terminals, since the client > hardware is good enough and the server is not powerful enough. > > > > To ease the tasks described above I'm thinking about image based > installation and updating of the clients and came across your project. So > far it looks very promising, but unfortunately I couldn't answer all my > questions myself by looking through your documentation. So here it goes: > > > > 1. Do you think that SI is suitable for this kind of scenario? > > 2. If I understand correctly SI is file-based, meaning that unlike > typical imaging programs (ghost, etc.) it copies files (or better: file > deltas) to the server and not whole partitions. If that is the case, then > how does SI work on a fresh client with an empty hard drive? Do you store > additional partition infos? And if yes, how do you handle differing hard > disk sizes (e.g. client hard disk is smaller or larger than original hard > disk)? > > 3. On feature of SI is that clients can run the SI client directly > over PXE, which I find easier than running from one PC to another with a CD. > IIRC you have to enable this for specific clients first. What happens with > clients which are not enabled? Will they boot normally from their hard disk > (that would allow me to simply enable PXE permanently for all clients in the > bios). Also how will this conflict with the existing PXE server for diskless > clients? Ideally I would be able to differentiate between diskless PXE > clients, and the "image update" PXE clients by MAC-Address. > > 4. How well does SI work with different hardware. I guess this is > mainly determined by the os itself (Kubuntu 7.04 in this case), but there > seems to be some things SI can help me with (SystemConfigurator?). One of > the things I want to do is to run my golden master client on a Virtual > Machine (VirtualBox), so that I can make changes at home without having to > use a separate computer. Do you think this is possible, or are the > differences between real and virtual hardware to big? > > > > Thank you very much for your time! > > Thomas Krause > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express > Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take > control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. > http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ > _______________________________________________ > sisuite-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sisuite-users > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ sisuite-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sisuite-users
