6. Setting up caching clients

  1. Locate a bootstrap CD for the client OS you wish to install and mount it at /mnt/cdrom.

    Create a copy of the files stored on the boot image on that CD by running these commands:

    
    cp /mnt/cdrom/images/boot.iso /tmp/boot-original.iso
    mkdir /tmp/boot-original
    mount -o loop /tmp/boot-original.iso /tmp/boot-original
    cp -aR /tmp/boot-original /tmp/boot-new
    umount /tmp/boot-original
    cd /tmp/boot-new/isolinux
    					  
  2. Edit isolinux.cfg ; you should see a collection of stanzas that begin with a label directive. Locate the label linux stanza, and its append line. Add this option to the append line to enable the installation process to pick up additional configuration options from your server:

    ks=http://server-name/stateless/ks-bootstrap.cfg
  3. You may want to edit boot.msg so that it contains a message that will identify this boot disk when you boot with it.

  4. Review the command-line used to generate the original ISO by running isodebug /tmp/boot-original.iso

  5. Run the following commands; everything but paths should be the same as the output from isodebug above:

    cd /tmp/boot-new
    mkisofs -o ../boot-new.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -R -J -V "Fedora Core" -T .

  6. Use a CD burner to create a CD from this ISO; we will use this to turn new PCs into client machines.

Procedure 4. Create a bootstrap ISO

  1. Add a client to the server configuration

    • Edit /etc/dhcp.conf to assign an IP to MAC.

    • Add the client machine's MAC address to the LDAP database to specify which protosystem and snapshot it should be running.

  2. Boot the client machine using the bootstrap CD created earlier

    The client machine ought to display the message you set up in boot.msg earlier. Press the Enter to start anaconda, the installation program

    Anaconda should fetch its configuration data ("Kickstart file") from your server, based upon the ks= entry set up in the bootstrap ISO, and should proceed to formatting the hard drives of the client machine without further intervention. If it asks you to choose a language to be used during the installation process, there is a problem with fetching the kickstart file.

    A basic installation will be set up on the client, consisting of the necessary disk partitions, and a minimal install on one partition, which should take about a minute.

    Once this is done, the kickstart script will run the stateless client replication program. This will query the LDAP server to determine which snapshot the client should be runnning, and will then install a copy of it to one of the partitions.

  3. Remove the bootstrap CD from the client; and reboot it. It should now boot into the snapshot.

    Login as a user, everything should now be working.