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how to automatically install all unices

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Signed-off-by: Nico Schottelius <nico@kr.ethz.ch>
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Nico Schottelius 2011-04-02 00:49:59 +02:00
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[[!meta title="Automated Unix Installations"]]
From time to time I'm playing around with different Unices,
mostly free ones like *BSD and Linux and wonder how easy it is
to have an automatic installation.
## Preample: There's only one way to do it
My expererience as a sysadmin is that the only way to scale
out installations is via network install: USB sticks, cdroms
or floppies just require too much manual work. As most installations
need network connectivity anyway, there is no need to rely on these
old fashioned, non scalable methods.
## Network install
If an (unix) operating system supports network install, it should
require only a TFTP server. The reason for this is that for network
installations using PXE a TFTP server is required anyway.
After the installer is running, it can definitely use the usual
methods to retrieve components like packages (i.e. HTTP, NFS, etc.),
but this not require me, as a sysadmin, to setup any additional
service.
## The challenge
Now I'm sitting in front of some computers and I'm wondering how
easy it can be to setup these boxes with different Unices
*automated*.
## Current status
I've started the [[cuni|software/cuni]] project some time ago to
learn about the unix installers and I'm aware of at least
Kickstart for Redhat/Fedora, Preseed for Debian/Ubuntu
and Fai for Debian. I guess there are many other out there and
I'm wondering how easy it is for every Unix to get into a
complete unattendet, autoamated installation.
## Help appreciated, comments and critics welcome
I'm aware that this is a bigger project, but at the end it would
be very useful for sysadmins maintaining small and large infrastructures
to be able to have *one way to rule them all*.
So if you are an expert of $Unix and know how to automate the
installation of it via network, [[just drop me a mail|contact]].
I plan to extend [[cuni|software/cuni]] to be able to create automated
installation environments, as soon as I've collected the necessary
information on how to do so.
[[!tag eth foss unix]]