Have you looked at Cobbler and KOAN? Great tools... On Thu, 18 Feb 2010, Les Mikesell wrote: > On 2/18/2010 8:58 AM, Toby Bluhm wrote: >> >>>> >>>> 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. > > That's going to be true of any installation that involves your DHCP > server since you typically have only one and it has to be set up > specifically for your subnets. For the moment at least, we run drbl in > a lab setting using its DHCP/PXE booting only on a separate subnet that > we use for cloning. If we want access to the images from other networks > we use a CD or USB boot to clonezilla and connect to the other interface > on the server. If I did that more often, I'd probably set up the drbl > box to handle all dhcp or configure the main dhcp server to have the > same booting options. > > -- Scot P. Floess 27 Lake Royale Louisburg, NC 27549 252-478-8087 (Home) 919-890-8117 (Work) Chief Architect JPlate http://sourceforge.net/projects/jplate Chief Architect JavaPIM http://sourceforge.net/projects/javapim Architect Keros http://sourceforge.net/projects/keros