Toby Bluhm wrote:
>
>>
>> I am using Cent OS 5.2 . i want to create one master image of whole
>> running OS becoz i have to do same installation many times on
>> different machines.
>> so any one suggest me to how create and run the image of whole OS at
>> the time of installation or , which escape me to install each and
>> every thing many times.
>> i would not like to create image using dd.
>> any suggestions ??
>>
>
> Clonezilla is designed with your intent in mind. I believe it should
> support lvm & sw raid.
>
> www.clonezilla.org
Clonezilla is great for single disk images and can handle lvm and
windows partitions, but it doesn't do software raid unless you create it
yourself and use partition copy mode. Clonezilla will be the fastest
way if the machines have a single disk or hw raid - it is very fast and
you'll only have to change the hostname and IP of the finished copies.
For a few machines you can use the clonezilla-live bootable iso and
connect to a network drive for the images via nfs, smb, or ssh. For a
large number of machines you can install the companion drbl program to
pxe-boot into clonezilla with the image storage already mounted.
Next best in speed would be a kickstart install - and again you can use
a minimal-setup approach for a small number of machines by dropping the
file created by your initial install onto an existing web server and
giving the URL at the boot prompt of a DVD or NFS install, and the
simple way to do additional setup is to export an NFS share with the
content and install script you need do drop it in. It's a couple of
command lines to mount the share and execute the script. If you have a
very large number of machines you can automate it completely with
cobbler - or the drbl progran can be configured to do kickstart installs
too.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com