Michael DeHaan wrote: > Steven W. Carter wrote: > >> An interesting idea for additional functionality behind this would be >> to enable a "watch folder" in the cobbler directory where ISOs could >> be dumped with a descriptive filename. Then Cobbler could >> automatically add them to the PXE menu on a sync. >> >> For example, you could have a few images named: >> >> really_cool_image.iso >> random_install_image.iso >> >> in a directory like /var/www/html/cobbler/ISO/ >> >> and then the menu would have entries that look like: >> >> really_cool_image >> random_install_image >> >> Since these would have no other integration with the cobbler system, >> Cobbler would only need to know their location to put them into the >> PXE menu. This would also make it very easy to allow for updates to >> the images without requiring any fuss with the Cobbler interface, >> especially when these ISO images wouldn't be handled with any >> kickstarting or any of the other nifty features that Cobbler usually >> takes care of. Thoughts? >> >> ~Steven >> > > Yes, we could easily do something like this ... > > I think a first step is being able to flag a cobbler image object for > use with memdisk, so you can do "cobbler image add --name=foo > --path=/splat/foo.iso --bootmethod=memdisk > > Right now if you add an image record it shows up as if it was directly > bootable, which is wrong. > > The watch directory behavior could then implemented as a cobbler > pre-sync trigger. > > We currently don't ship many triggers, but we could ship more -- > possibly installing all the "potentially useful" triggers in a parallel > directory where someone could just create a symlink to enable them. > > As I still have more to do with image objects, I'll look into that first > part today. > > --Michael > > > > >> On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 4:28 PM, Michael DeHaan <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: >> >> Michael DeHaan wrote: >> > This is a neat feature, but takes some explaining. Previously >> we have >> > been able to support things like memtest through special code, >> we found >> > the image if installed and added it to certain PXE configs. >> However you >> > couldn't easily do things like make MAC address AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF >> > automatically boot memtest, and so forth. >> > >> > Now, imagine that special code didn't exist and we could do it >> > generically. Also imagine that we weren't booting something as >> lame as >> > memtest. What if we could easily boot anything we wanted, just >> as we >> > can deal with kernels and initrds? Now we can. >> > >> > cobbler image add --name=SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment >> --file=/opt/live.iso >> > >> > Though we don't have to imagine it, we have this on the devel branch >> > now. Admittedly, I still tested with memtest and not >> > SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment, though the concept is entirely the >> same :) >> > >> > Further, we can do things like assign a specific MAC address to boot >> > that live environment: >> > >> > cobbler system add --name=fooserver --mac=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF >> > --image=SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment >> > >> > The next time that system boots, it will boot that image. This >> doesn't >> > have to be an installation related image, it might just be a >> firmware >> > update disk. >> > >> > Note that I didn't use --profile here, I used --image. >> > >> > One of cobbler's goals is to be able to break down the abstraction >> > between physical and virtual machines. Here we are able to use >> "cobbler >> > image" objects (with cobbler/koan 1.1 and later) to do installs both >> > physically and virtually. >> > >> > The ability to netboot a live-image plays critically into our >> desire to >> > support net-deploying live image cloning environments, and may >> also have >> > applications for Stateless environments (LTSP thin clients?). >> > >> > Note that as with cobbler profiles, you can also assign arbitrary >> > "append" options (i..e kernel options) to images. We could >> also use >> > this to streamline our existing support to memtest, but since >> that is >> > already "automatic" and relatively clever (it adds it >> automatically if >> > you have memtestx86+ installed) we probably will leave that as is. >> > >> > Anyhow, feel free to test this feature out on the devel branch >> with any >> > bootable images. >> > >> > I will say adding this feature was relatively complicated, so >> with the >> > image support, testing will be very welcome to see if we run >> into any >> > problems. No changes are in place for any existing profiles or >> system >> > objects, just note that now systems can also "inherit" from >> images, or >> > profiles, but not both at the same time. >> > >> > We still need to update the WebUI to take advantage of these >> features. >> > >> > So, please help test this out, and if everything is good we'll >> see about >> > updating the Wiki to show how to use this with other tools, such >> as the >> > firmware update images that are already out there... and we can >> also do >> > some more testing with live environments and maybe even stateless >> > applications. >> > >> > --Michael >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > cobbler mailing list >> > [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]> >> > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >> > >> >> It takes more than this to PXE-boot a non-live image. >> >> I'll look into this and have some more instructions on the Wiki later >> (and others are welcome to add to it once up). >> >> Doing some extra live testing now. >> >> --Michael >> _______________________________________________ >> cobbler mailing list >> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> cobbler mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > cobbler mailing list > [email protected] > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >
Lots of neverending changes/refinements on this. It looks like "image add/edit" is now going to take an --image-type Values: direct # PXEs directly (like "memtest"), does not support virt iso # PXEs via memdisk helper, or supports virt installations virt-clone # for things like virt-cloning, which is not yet supported If anyone can think of a better word for "direct", please suggest one. --Michael _______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list [email protected] https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
