Remote System Builds
Is there yet any way to remotely rebuild a FreeBSD system? I have two FreeBSD systems on two remote campuses that presently run FreeBSD6.3. They need to be running FreeBSD9.0 and I don't really care how I get there as long as it can be done over the network. If we were physically there, I would put a CDROM in and blow them away since it is such a large jump. I can have staff members there install CDROM's that were remastered to use the serial console, but I am hoping that maybe we are moving past this sort of logistics. I just tried to unpack the 9.0 image using tar which has worked in the past to let one modify loader.conf but I got a bunch of errors this time about files that couldn't be created so maybe this is not the recommended headless installation technique any longer. Any ideas? Thank you very much Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK Systems Engineer OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Remote System Builds
On 26 March 2012, at 11:20, Martin McCormick wrote: Is there yet any way to remotely rebuild a FreeBSD system? I have two FreeBSD systems on two remote campuses that presently run FreeBSD6.3. They need to be running FreeBSD9.0 and I don't really care how I get there as long as it can be done over the network. If we were physically there, I would put a CDROM in and blow them away since it is such a large jump. I can have staff members there install CDROM's that were remastered to use the serial console, but I am hoping that maybe we are moving past this sort of logistics. I just tried to unpack the 9.0 image using tar which has worked in the past to let one modify loader.conf but I got a bunch of errors this time about files that couldn't be created so maybe this is not the recommended headless installation technique any longer. I am going to be facing the same issue in a few months. My experiences with the serial console are that it is great for correcting small issues, trying to use it for initial configuration is not going to be real easy. I would like to be able to build a custom CD for that specific machine that doesn't need any operator input. They just install it and boot the machine. It would need to format the disk and do the complete installation (base and uniquely configured ports etc.). Is that possible?___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Remote System Builds
26.03.2012 22:20, Martin McCormick пишет: Is there yet any way to remotely rebuild a FreeBSD system? I have two FreeBSD systems on two remote campuses that presently run FreeBSD6.3. They need to be running FreeBSD9.0 and I don't really care how I get there as long as it can be done over the network. If we were physically there, I would put a CDROM in and blow them away since it is such a large jump. I used an USB stick with full system, sources (/usr/src) and compiled binary (/usr/obj). Since the system is booted from USB, I have full control via ssh session. I can have staff members there install CDROM's that were remastered to use the serial console, but I am hoping that maybe we are moving past this sort of logistics. I just tried to unpack the 9.0 image using tar which has worked in the past to let one modify loader.conf but I got a bunch of errors this time about files that couldn't be created so maybe this is not the recommended headless installation technique any longer. Any ideas? HTH -- WBR, Boris Samorodov (bsam) FreeBSD Committer, http://www.FreeBSD.org The Power To Serve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
RE: Remote System Builds
-Original Message- From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd- questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Doug Hardie Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:54 AM To: Martin McCormick Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Remote System Builds On 26 March 2012, at 11:20, Martin McCormick wrote: Is there yet any way to remotely rebuild a FreeBSD system? I have two FreeBSD systems on two remote campuses that presently run FreeBSD6.3. They need to be running FreeBSD9.0 and I don't really care how I get there as long as it can be done over the network. If we were physically there, I would put a CDROM in and blow them away since it is such a large jump. I can have staff members there install CDROM's that were remastered to use the serial console, but I am hoping that maybe we are moving past this sort of logistics. I just tried to unpack the 9.0 image using tar which has worked in the past to let one modify loader.conf but I got a bunch of errors this time about files that couldn't be created so maybe this is not the recommended headless installation technique any longer. I am going to be facing the same issue in a few months. My experiences with the serial console are that it is great for correcting small issues, trying to use it for initial configuration is not going to be real easy. I would like to be able to build a custom CD for that specific machine that doesn't need any operator input. They just install it and boot the machine. It would need to format the disk and do the complete installation (base and uniquely configured ports etc.). Is that possible? Our company is facing a jump from FreeBSD-4.11 to FreeBSD-8.1 later this year (in a few months). The challenge is recognized as: 1. Upgrade 3,000+ systems in a matter of 60-90 days. 2. Many of those systems need to be upgraded remotely where no technical staff exists (e.g. India, Philippines, Canada, etc.) 3. The remote upgrade must be done via SSH and NFS 4. Machines being upgraded must reboot and come back onto the network without local technical assistance The technique that I developed to accomplish this is a shell script weighing in at [currently] 1954 lines of code. In addition to the 1954 lines of code, there are another 631 lines of code dedicated to specific migrations that have to be performed specific to (say) jumping from 4.11 to 8.1 (e.g., you should remove the nodev option from your NFS mounts in /etc/fstab, among other things). On top of THAT, there's another 8778 lines of code dedicated to cruft removal (lists of files/directories that are unique to either the source-binary distro or the destination-binary distro; depending on the direction of migration). I will be releasing the full script soon (in a couple weeks) and even though it's not specifically targeted to your migration path (6.3 to 9.0), it can be learning-tool to illustrate exactly HOW you can go about making that binary migration a reality. Fortunately, it's very easy for me to provide explicit instructions on how exactly we jump from 4.11 to 8.1, or 8.1 back to 4.11, or even from 8.1 i386 to 8.1 amd64 (and back) ... the script that I've written takes a -nv syntax which means don't actually do anything, but show me the explicit commands that I can execute by-hand to migrate from one OS to the next as an in-place migration which has the following output: NOTE: The output below is a sample migration from 4.11 to 8.1-amd64 WARNING: This is not intended to be a full solution provided to the OP but rather a conversation-starter that should illustrate not only how HARD and/or DIFFICULT it is to do what the OP asked, but also to show how it IS POSSIBLE to achieve. WARNING: Also, it's worth noting that this procedure will NOT work to jump to 9.x because the binary distribution sets from 9.0 and higher are in a different format. You can work around this by adjusting for this fact -- replacing syntax such as cat base/base.?? | tar ... to simply cat base.txz | tar ... (accounting for the new monolithic distribution-sets in 9.0 and higher). === BEGIN OUTPUT OF OUR BINARY MIGRATION SCRIPT BELOW === Rebuild / with repository 8.1-RELEASE-amd64 TEST-ONLY! No actions will be performed. Source 8.1-RELEASE-amd64 specific config file . ./etc/8.1-RELEASE-amd64.conf Run 8.1-RELEASE-amd64 specific pre_install pre_install # Preflight sanity check (check release) #Migration from 4.11-STABLE to 8.1-RELEASE-amd64 allowed # Prevent disappearance of tar(1) rm -Rfv /var/db/pkg/tar-1.5 # Move `/usr/local/etc/rc.d' to `/usr/local/etc/rc.d.xbak-2012-03-26.12:32:08' mv -v /usr/local/etc/rc.d /usr/local/etc/rc.d.xbak-2012-03-26.12:32:08 mkdir -pv /usr/local/etc/rc.d chmod -v 0755 /usr/local/etc/rc.d chown -v root:wheel /usr/local/etc/rc.d Find/Remove core-dumps to free-up disk space find -x / -maxdepth 2 -name '*.core' -type f | xargs rm -fv
Re: Remote System Builds
On 26/03/2012 19:20, Martin McCormick wrote: I just tried to unpack the 9.0 image using tar which has worked in the past to let one modify loader.conf but I got a bunch of errors this time about files that couldn't be created so maybe this is not the recommended headless installation technique any longer. To create a custom install CD? You might find it better to build your .iso or memstick images from the system sources. See release(7). The trick seems to be to make the 'system' target of the /usr/src/release/Makefile which will install the system into a chroot. You should then be able to edit files under that chroot. Then just 'make release.iso' or 'make memstick' to create an installer image. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
