On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Jason Pyeron <jpyeron at pdinc.us> wrote: > This is the best collection of minds I can think of on this topic, that's why it > is on this list. I think it is too subjective for stackoverflow. > > So here is the problem: > > The community center has multiple computers for the children (and adult > students) to use. These computer are always donated and the hardware is all > different. Currently the systems are running Windows (but this may change). Most > days the systems are "hacked" by the kids and all is well, but sometimes the > changes to the systems requires a reinstall. The staff are not presently > qualified to diagnose any problems. > > Here is the draft idea: > > 1. Have a CentOS image / PXE server. > > 2. Make a (bootable) utility CD that: > * has a program to "save" the state of the computer to the image server > * on boot gives an option to re-image the computer > * has a (boot-time or OS) diagnostic program to check network connectivity to > the image server > > 3. Make a single page instruction sheet on using the utility disc, including on > how to boot from CD > > Implementation suggestions? Follow the yum install instructions here: http://drbl.org/installation/ You will get a pxe-booting system that can boot into clonezilla (a menu driven image copy cloning system) that you can use if you want to save or install images, or that can pxe-boot a live linux system so you don't have to have anything installed on the clients at all - they'll just pxe-boot and nfs-mount the server. You can also download a clonezilla-live bootable iso to save/restore images where pxe booting isn't practical. Clonezilla will deal with either windows or linux systems and knows enough about filesystems to just save the used blocks. Highly recommended - the only down side is that the target disk in a restore has to be at least as large as the source. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com