Thomas Krause wrote: > 1. Do you think that SI is suitable for this kind of scenario?
Yes. > > 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)? SI can be used to perform the first installation of fresh clients, re-installations to restore the operating system in a well known state and to keep in sync any number of clients with an image of a filesystem (with optional deltas). The partitioning schema of your clients is defined in /etc/systemimager/autoinstallscript.conf of your golden client. In your image server it'll be /var/lib/systemimager/<your_image>/etc/systemimager/autoinstallscript.conf (there's an autoinstallscript.conf for each image). In this (xml) configuration file you can define the size of your partitions. If you've disks with different sizes you can use the attribute unit_of_measurement="%" (it can be set to "MB" or "%"). See `man autoinstallscript.conf` for details. > > 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. It can be done easily with si_mkclientnetboot (see man si_mkclientnetboot for details). With this command you can define the clients that you want to image over PXE with SI. The other clients will use a different PXE config file and they'll boot with your diskless configuration, or directly to the local disk, etc, etc... > > 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? Hardware heterogeneity is very well supported (at least in our testing environments :-)). I usually perform my tests using VMWare machines so I don't see any problem if you run your golden client or your image server (or both) in a virtual environment. Regards, -Andrea ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
