On 11/12/07 12:01 -0500, Sean Dague wrote: > On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 12:52:56AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > On Dec 11, 2007 12:30 AM, Porkchop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Imagine being given the task of installing linux onto 400 machines. > > > Whats the easiest, most straightforward and extensible way? What I did > > > for a datacenter was make a barebones bootcd (actually, it was small > > > enough for a floppy) with just enough brains to do exactly what Michael > > > is attempting to do. (incidentally, I was running the whole thing as > > > root; no need to su.) > > NFS is our friend. :-) > NFS is equally unencrypted and spoofable. :)
NFS is also more prone to security flaws and, in my experience, less stable. As well, using NFS leaves you such problems as dealing with special files, like devices, links, hard links, psudofilesystems, etc. You could toss that in a tarball, at which point you're much better using HTTP or FTP (more lightweight, faster). TFTP doesn't do so well with >2GB files. You also don't have the ability easily to alter the install script per machine (give each machine a different hostname for instance) with this method. HTTP can vary the scripts each time with PHP or similar. NFS is inappropiate for imaging a machine, and really problematic for multiple machines. Well enough bashing on NFS. Its had a good life. Thankfully we're on to better now. -porkchop _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Dec 5 - Open Source Show and Tell Jan 2 - TBD Feb 6 - DBUS Mar 5 - Setting up a platform-independent home/small office network using Linux
