Steven W. Carter wrote: > livecd-iso-to-pxe does some sort of check to determine if the image is > in fact a livecd. Could we possible just have three options (direct, > iso, virt-clone) and have the iso option first run whatever check > livecd-iso-to-pxe uses to determine if it's a live image? Worst case, > we could do some janky grepping for the error after it runs the > check. That would reduce you from four to only three options. >
Possibly, the alternative might be doing something like "cobbler liveimport" to automate the distro+profile creation for live ISOs. Currently I'm experiencing problems with getting a full Fedora live ISO to boot over the network, so I want to chase that first. It is probably a problem with the live image itself. > Additionally, I'm attemping to test this fuctionality (cobbler image > add --name=something --file=/path/to/image --image-type=memdisk) but > it doesn't output anything to the menu in the boot options. Do I have > to do something else to add it to the menu? It is intended to show up, I'll look into this. --Michael > On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 3:51 PM, Michael DeHaan <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > Michael DeHaan wrote: > > Michael DeHaan wrote: > > > >> Steven W. Carter wrote: > >> > >> > >>> An interesting idea for additional functionality behind this > would be > >>> to enable a "watch folder" in the cobbler directory where ISOs > could > >>> be dumped with a descriptive filename. Then Cobbler could > >>> automatically add them to the PXE menu on a sync. > >>> > >>> For example, you could have a few images named: > >>> > >>> really_cool_image.iso > >>> random_install_image.iso > >>> > >>> in a directory like /var/www/html/cobbler/ISO/ > >>> > >>> and then the menu would have entries that look like: > >>> > >>> really_cool_image > >>> random_install_image > >>> > >>> Since these would have no other integration with the cobbler > system, > >>> Cobbler would only need to know their location to put them > into the > >>> PXE menu. This would also make it very easy to allow for > updates to > >>> the images without requiring any fuss with the Cobbler interface, > >>> especially when these ISO images wouldn't be handled with any > >>> kickstarting or any of the other nifty features that Cobbler > usually > >>> takes care of. Thoughts? > >>> > >>> ~Steven > >>> > >>> > >> Yes, we could easily do something like this ... > >> > >> I think a first step is being able to flag a cobbler image > object for > >> use with memdisk, so you can do "cobbler image add --name=foo > >> --path=/splat/foo.iso --bootmethod=memdisk > >> > >> Right now if you add an image record it shows up as if it was > directly > >> bootable, which is wrong. > >> > >> The watch directory behavior could then implemented as a cobbler > >> pre-sync trigger. > >> > >> We currently don't ship many triggers, but we could ship more -- > >> possibly installing all the "potentially useful" triggers in a > parallel > >> directory where someone could just create a symlink to enable them. > >> > >> As I still have more to do with image objects, I'll look into > that first > >> part today. > >> > >> --Michael > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >>> On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 4:28 PM, Michael DeHaan > <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >>> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>> wrote: > >>> > >>> Michael DeHaan wrote: > >>> > This is a neat feature, but takes some explaining. > Previously > >>> we have > >>> > been able to support things like memtest through special > code, > >>> we found > >>> > the image if installed and added it to certain PXE configs. > >>> However you > >>> > couldn't easily do things like make MAC address > AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF > >>> > automatically boot memtest, and so forth. > >>> > > >>> > Now, imagine that special code didn't exist and we could > do it > >>> > generically. Also imagine that we weren't booting > something as > >>> lame as > >>> > memtest. What if we could easily boot anything we > wanted, just > >>> as we > >>> > can deal with kernels and initrds? Now we can. > >>> > > >>> > cobbler image add --name=SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment > >>> --file=/opt/live.iso > >>> > > >>> > Though we don't have to imagine it, we have this on the > devel branch > >>> > now. Admittedly, I still tested with memtest and not > >>> > SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment, though the concept is > entirely the > >>> same :) > >>> > > >>> > Further, we can do things like assign a specific MAC > address to boot > >>> > that live environment: > >>> > > >>> > cobbler system add --name=fooserver --mac=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF > >>> > --image=SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment > >>> > > >>> > The next time that system boots, it will boot that > image. This > >>> doesn't > >>> > have to be an installation related image, it might just be a > >>> firmware > >>> > update disk. > >>> > > >>> > Note that I didn't use --profile here, I used --image. > >>> > > >>> > One of cobbler's goals is to be able to break down the > abstraction > >>> > between physical and virtual machines. Here we are able > to use > >>> "cobbler > >>> > image" objects (with cobbler/koan 1.1 and later) to do > installs both > >>> > physically and virtually. > >>> > > >>> > The ability to netboot a live-image plays critically > into our > >>> desire to > >>> > support net-deploying live image cloning environments, > and may > >>> also have > >>> > applications for Stateless environments (LTSP thin > clients?). > >>> > > >>> > Note that as with cobbler profiles, you can also assign > arbitrary > >>> > "append" options (i..e kernel options) to images. We could > >>> also use > >>> > this to streamline our existing support to memtest, but > since > >>> that is > >>> > already "automatic" and relatively clever (it adds it > >>> automatically if > >>> > you have memtestx86+ installed) we probably will leave > that as is. > >>> > > >>> > Anyhow, feel free to test this feature out on the devel > branch > >>> with any > >>> > bootable images. > >>> > > >>> > I will say adding this feature was relatively > complicated, so > >>> with the > >>> > image support, testing will be very welcome to see if we run > >>> into any > >>> > problems. No changes are in place for any existing > profiles or > >>> system > >>> > objects, just note that now systems can also "inherit" from > >>> images, or > >>> > profiles, but not both at the same time. > >>> > > >>> > We still need to update the WebUI to take advantage of these > >>> features. > >>> > > >>> > So, please help test this out, and if everything is good > we'll > >>> see about > >>> > updating the Wiki to show how to use this with other > tools, such > >>> as the > >>> > firmware update images that are already out there... and > we can > >>> also do > >>> > some more testing with live environments and maybe even > stateless > >>> > applications. > >>> > > >>> > --Michael > >>> > > >>> > _______________________________________________ > >>> > cobbler mailing list > >>> > [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > >>> <mailto:[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> > >>> > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler > >>> > > >>> > >>> It takes more than this to PXE-boot a non-live image. > >>> > >>> I'll look into this and have some more instructions on the > Wiki later > >>> (and others are welcome to add to it once up). > >>> > >>> Doing some extra live testing now. > >>> > >>> --Michael > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> cobbler mailing list > >>> [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > <mailto:[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> > >>> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler > >>> > >>> > >>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> cobbler mailing list > >>> [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > >>> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> cobbler mailing list > >> [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > >> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler > >> > >> > > > > Lots of neverending changes/refinements on this. > > > > It looks like "image add/edit" is now going to take an --image-type > > > > Values: > > > > direct # PXEs directly (like "memtest"), does not support virt > > iso # PXEs via memdisk helper, or supports virt installations > > virt-clone # for things like virt-cloning, which is not yet > supported > > > > If anyone can think of a better word for "direct", please > suggest one. > > > > --Michael > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > cobbler mailing list > > [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler > > > > memdisk seems a bit unhappy, maybe we end up with "direct, memdisk, > live, and virt-clone", and have live know to run livecd-iso-to-pxe > if it > needs to. > > Since Cobbler's job is partly to make dissimilar technology consumable > in logical ways, I'm ultimately not sure how far we should go here > into > smoothing things out. Thoughts welcome and stay tuned ... > > --Michael > > > _______________________________________________ > cobbler mailing list > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > cobbler mailing list > [email protected] > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler > _______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list [email protected] https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
