If you are a System Admin, you might be thinking about the possibilities of automating the client operating system deployment in all the PCs. RedHat/Fedora Core Linux makes it easier with the help of special installation methods. I prefer this method because it does not have the issues related to disk cloning and there is no hassle of changing CDs as and when asked.

We are going to use a FTP Server based deploment method. In this method, you’ll create a dump of all the installation CDs in a FTP server and ask your linux installer to access those files using FTP during installation. Simple… isn’t it?

Here is the steps you need to follow..

1. Create a folder in your FTP server ( Can be any FTP server, If you have a Microsoft Windows PC, I recommend FileZilla FTP server… ) and copy all the files and folders from each of the iso images to the same folder and overwrite files if asked.

2. Make a network boot floppy using the bootnet.img file inside the images folder of the first CD/ISO. Boot your client system with this floppy. There are no boot floppy images available for RHEL 4.0. Boot the system with first install CD and at the boot prompt, type ‘linux askmethod’ . You may also try burning the boot.iso image inside the first CD to make a install startup CD. There are images available for USB media and PXE booting… but no floppy. 🙁

3. ‘linux askmethod’ will give you a choice of options which you are looking for… http,ftp,nfs etc..

4. Select FTP and provide the details like login , password , FTP server IP and folder name which you kept the files.

5. If you would like to further automate this, install one client system and copy the file /root/anaconda-ks.cfg to a floppy and rename it as ks.cfg In the next client system, the command at boot prompt would be ‘linux ks=floppy’. This would take care of FTP details and package selections etc and install a complete system without any interaction…

I mean minimum interaction possible.There might be ways to totally automate the process using the native tools. If anyone knows, please let me know.
Thank you. 🙂