Automated Deployment With Pxe Boot - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE DESKTOP 11 - DEPLOYMENT GUIDE 17-03-2009 Deployment Manual

19.2 Automated Deployment with PXE
Boot
When doing many installations of a operating system on similar hardware, it is useful
to put some effort into preparing a mass deployment of the operating system and to
minimize the time needed for the actual deployment. This is what this chapter is about.
The goal is to just attach a computer to power and network, start a network boot, and
wait until it switches off again.
The following actions have to be performed in order to accomplish this task:
Setup a boot and install server
A dedicated machine is needed, that should be prepared to offer PXE boot as well
as an ftp or web server to provide a preload image. It is a good idea to give the
machine enough memory to hold all necessary installation data in memory. For a
default installation, you should have at least 4 GByte of memory. All the necessary
tasks can be accomplished with a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. For more details,
see Section 19.2.1, "Setup a Boot and Install Server"
Prepare a preload Image
The actual installation is done by copying a raw image of the operating system to
the new harddisk. All features and settings have to be prepared and tested carefully.
To provide such an image, KIWI can be used, that is available in the SDK of the
SUSE Linux Enterprise operating system. More information about image creation
with KIWI is available in
requirements of the preload image, see
(page 232).
Create a initial system for deployment
This is a task that needs some linux expertise. A description about how this can be
achieved by means of an example installation is available at
ating a Initial System to Deploy a Preload Image"
Configure the boot server to do automatic deployments
Finally, all must be put together. PXE boot must be told to boot the installation
system, that in turn will take the preload image from the server and copy it to the
harddisk.
Chapter 14, KIWI (page 181). For more details about the
Section 19.2.2, "Creating a Preload Image"
Automated Deployment of Preload Images
(page 232).
Section 19.2.3, "Cre-
(page 233).
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