On 2/18/2010 8:49 AM, Les Mikesell wrote: > Rudi Ahlers wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I want to setup a central installation server, but haven't done this >> before, so I want to find out what would be best practices for this? >> >> The server I have already runs as a central repo, which is updated from >> one or our local centos mirrors, and the other CentOS servers (both i386 >> & x64), as well as CentOS VPS's get their updates from this server. >> >> But, now I want to allow a client to perform a quick network >> installation, using either a netbood CD, or preferably with the server's >> network bootrom. I understand this can be done with bootp, or am I on >> the wrong track? >> >> the server is a general file server and also acts as our in-office >> internet gateway, and has Webmin installed for convenience sake. I don't >> know if this is of any use? >> >> Generally we would be (re)installing CentOS servers& desktops, but I >> guess it could be useful for other distro's like Fedora Core / Debian / >> FreeBSD? / etc. What would be a good option to go for, or could someone >> point me to a good documentation? Doing a google search I found a lot of >> instructions on how to perform a network installation on the client >> PC's, but not how to configure the server. Maybe I used the wrong key words? > > If you want to do disk cloning (any OS, including windows) or PXE boot into a > running, look at drbl and clonezilla http://drbl.sourceforge.net/. You can find > a yum repository for Centos in the list at http://drbl.sourceforge.net/one4all/. > > It has a menu configuration that I think can be made to boot into an installer > but I've never used it that way since our machines are mostly identical and a > lot of them are windows based. > +1 This is how I have it setup. Reboot any PC, hit F12, PXE boot a menu of selections: Clonezilla backup/restore, Centos5 install/rescue, DBAN, memtest, systemrescuecd, etc. WARNING - drbl/clonezilla server should probably be tested/installed on a standalone test box as it likes to overwrite several conf's. Also, if you have a mix of 32bit & 64bit client hardware, use a 32bit server. Your 32bit machines will work & you can still PXE boot into 64bit stuff. -- tkb