On 7/22/07, Bernd Schemmer <Bernd.Schemmer at gmx.de> wrote: > Hi, > > >>This is certainly an area that could use some > >>work. In comparison to Kickstart with Red Hat, the configuration of > >>jumpstart seems rather disjoint and complicated. > > Well, in my experience jumpstart is not that complicated. And it's a very > good solution to install Solaris servers in production environments (and to > my knowledge that's for what jumpstart is for, or?)
Jumpstart is complicated for the person that is new to Solaris and doesn't need to install a lot of machines. I say this with a much stronger background in Jumpstart than Kickstart/Anaconda. Key areas where Jumpstart falls down are: - The only exposed package clusters are very coarse-grained and always of the form "add more software" rather than "select different software". The more detailed view you get through an interactive installation is not exposed through the documentation. - Sysidcfg is a royal pain. Consider the case where you have a machine that uses DNS for hostname resolution and any other name service for the rest. - Jumpstart server must be Solaris (setup_install_server and friends are stuck on this). Yeah, I and a bunch of other people have used Linux or other OS's as jumpstart servers, but that was an undocumented hack. - If using DHCP, Jumpstart requires vendor macros. This means that either you need to learn Sun's DHCP server or find someone that understands the process of adding vendor options to the existing DHCP server (and is willing to do it). In most places I have worked, this is much more difficult than it should be. > I don't know the Linux installers very good - but I doubt that they are as > flexible and usable like jumpstart. They are flexible, but quite different from Jumpstart. I would argue that they are better for casual users because of this difference. Advanced users will customize either one to a significant degree. > >> I'm quite fond of > >>the fact that anaconda generates a ks.cfg file that will can be used > >>to create identical servers or serve as a basis for configuring others > >>that are nearly identical > > That's also possible with jumpstart - but you must create the necessary > config files manually. And that is a key pain point for the newbie. You need to run setup_install_server, modify rules, create a sysidcfg, etc. If you want finishing scripts to work, that is even more of a challenge. With Kickstart you can have a single file that specifies everything (partitioning, software selection, name service configuration, other commands to run, etc.). If you prefer the jumpstart way of having finish scripts separate from the profile, you easily add the commands to perform an NFS mount and run the required commands from that mount point. -- Mike Gerdts http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/
