Michael DeHaan wrote: > Michael DeHaan wrote: >> Windows deployment is pain, sure enough, especially in a mixed >> Windows/Linux environment. >> >> I've been thinking about how to solve this for some time, with a good >> part of it posted to this list. >> >> Ultimately, we have to draw the line somewhere as Cobbler doesn't >> really want to know a lot about Windows internals, but it should still >> be easy to use. >> >> I think my proposal is thus: We make it easy to host and mass-deploy >> Windows on VT hardware, but we make the installer do just a little bit >> of legwork. >> >> Generally this seems to involve cracking open an ISO and inserting a >> unattended.txt file in the "i386" (or other) subdirectory. Google >> "unattended.txt" for info. I have yet to try this, though I figure >> someone who has could confirm this is sufficient.
Last time I looked, Unattended didn't support Vista and Windows 2008... So this solution doesn't cover the full spectrum of Windows guest types. (If this has changed and unattended now supports those OSes, let me know) Here's some snippets from an email conversation I had with some folks regarding Windows automation: > WinXP/2000 (2003?) support something called Unattended Installation. You use > a tool that is either part of WinXP or possibly downloaded as part of > something called the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Deployment Tools. This tool > allows you to create a file that is similar to a kickstart. You boot the > install ISO for the OS and make sure that this kickstart file is on a floppy > on the same machine and the OS just installs automatically. Here are some > relevant links: > > http://www.networkclue.com/os/Windows/install/unattended-install.aspx > http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3E90DC91-AC56-4665-949B-BEDA3080E0F6&displaylang=en > > Once the OS comes up it needs to run a tool called sysprep to assign it a > unique SSID and hostname for the machine. (As bad things happen when you > have multiple Windows boxes with the same name/SSID on the network) I > believe that the sysprep'ing is done automatically as well. > > For Vista there is a different approach. You need to use a toolkit called > Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK). Details are here: > > http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123-679830D629F2&displaylang=en > > It would be nice if Vista also supported the XP/2000 unattended install > method. Perhaps it does, but I need to check on this. (That way we could > use one method for the different varieties of Windows instead of a different > one per OS). And a follow up message: > So... I looked at the FAQ for this tool. It only supports -some- of the > OSs we need to work with. No 64-bit support at all. So I did a little > more searching and found: > > http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3bd8561f-77ac-4400-a0c1-fe871c461a89&DisplayLang=en > > It's called the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 and it seems to support > all of the OS flavors that we need. Perry _______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list [email protected] https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
