[Tech] Partimus (PXE?) (nearly?) unattended install solution(s?)

Tai Kedzierski dch.tai at gmail.com
Tue Sep 8 02:41:47 PDT 2015


HI Christian,

That's unfortunate to hear, and I'm sorry I was not able to have something
production-ready in time - I wasn't even aware that Ascend were looking at
a different solution... if anyone tried to tell me, I received nought.

Is anybody else trying to crack this nut from a practical point of view? I
would most appreciate hearing the results of their experiments...

==== On a technical front --

I did some more tests yesterday evening and it looks like I will need to
use a kernel-NFS share to get the Ubuntu netboot working. Using the netboot
initrd image from the mini.iso images just makes the installer system
expect a Ubuntu server image on the network, so it is indeed the initrd
image from the target DVD that needs to be used - but with that, it
complains about no medium being found at /dev/sr0.

I unpacked the initrd image from an Ubuntu desktop system and found the
casper boot script specifically tries to look for a local sr0 attachment -
which means that it seems there's no way of doing this over HTTP or FTP for
Ubuntu, the only other option present is an NFS share (or-re-engineering
the initrd scripts which I am not keen on doing right now).

Has nobody ever come across this caveat before?


+++

For the customization task - it seems there might be a lighter way of
producing an image, but which requires a modicum more of command-line
knowledge (launch build from command line, use apt-get/tasksel to customize
the env in a chroot - a set of github-hosted scripts could make the task
easier too). If the person building new images has standard command line
experience (installing software on their own laptop/desktop on CLI), this
is sufficient experience for the new procedure, so may be viable?


+++

I'm also looking at Michael Paoli's idea of having the PXE server and
target Desktop systems as being part of the same image, though for now I do
not see a straightforward way of doing this short of making the deliverable
an Open Virtual Appliance image with a VirutalBox installer as option....
but I'm sure I can find a way eventually.



Tai



===
Tai Kedzierski

Affordable Office IT for Freelance and Startup Businesses
http://helpuse.com/

  I use www.libreoffice.org

*"Open Source Free Software is a matter of liberty, not price."*
http://bit.ly/foss-why-care


On 8 September 2015 at 04:00, Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The Ascend school has adopted an Apple system, but we are looking at
> working with another educational org called the Western Addition Community
> Technology Center:
>
> http://www.westernadditionctc.org/
>
> We are also working on a pilot project with homeless shelters.
>
> Both of these projects could soon require a proxy server / clonezilla type
> server.  So if we were able to get a server together soon, it would
> certainly be helpful.
>
> Thanks!
>
> On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 3:19 AM, Tai Kedzierski <dch.tai at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Sorry for the long silence, got caught up in other projects and general
>> life events...
>>
>> I revisited the PXE setup, and have managed to produce a fairly reliable
>> recipe for a Ubuntu-14.04-based PXE server in VirtualBox (see attached)
>>
>> I'm having problems however with the Ubuntu installer - it gets through
>> most things fine, but then craps out at "Install the system" - from the
>> little I have so far read on mailing lists, it seems this is an issue with
>> the distro trying to fetch security packages from the installation medium
>> but not finding them there? Or the likes? Does not seem totally accurate to
>> me, but if anyone has any insights I would much appreciate them.
>>
>> Or have things moved on since ?
>>
>> I'll have a go at serving up a Lubuntu image instead, but I think that
>> will be a little more involved. Once I can do all that, we can tie
>> instructions together into a single workflow hopefully.
>>
>>
>> Tai
>>
>>
>>
>> ===
>> Tai Kedzierski
>>
>> Affordable Office IT for Freelance and Startup Businesses
>> http://helpuse.com/
>>
>>   I use www.libreoffice.org
>>
>> *"Open Source Free Software is a matter of liberty, not price."*
>> http://bit.ly/foss-why-care
>>
>>
>> On 18 June 2015 at 21:14, Elizabeth K. Joseph <lyz at partimus.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Michael Paoli
>>> <Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>> > Though I could set up CentOS to replicate what you've done, I don't
>>> > particularly see point to that, as Partimus PXE server ought be
>>> Lubuntu,
>>> > and I've already successfully set up both Debian and Lubuntu PXE
>>> > boot/install servers.
>>>
>>> As an organization we've developed the volunteer expertise and
>>> documentation around working with and managing Debian/Ubuntu
>>> deployments, so I'm also reluctant to bring CentOS into the mix here.
>>>
>>> Honest question WRT Ubuntu Server vs. Lubuntu and the proposed
>>> tooling: Is there a reason we need a graphical interface on our
>>> PXE/proxy/NFS server at all? Lubuntu just brings in the graphical
>>> components for a desktop, which generally are not appropriate for a
>>> Linux-based server.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your work on this Tai and Michael.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph || Lyz || pleia2
>>> http://www.partimus.org
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Tech mailing list
>> Tech at lists.partimus.org
>> http://lists.partimus.org/listinfo.cgi/tech-partimus.org
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Christian Einfeldt
>
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