PXE linux server for Disk Imaging software

Hi all,

I'm operating a cyber cafe with 50 PCs in my outlet. my daily
maintenance routine, I usually take out the hard disk and put in
another one which have CD-ROM and run ghost version 8 on the bootable
cd.

These is really a stupid way to do maintenance, so I found out my
motherboard actually have LAN as booting device, so I'm thinking to
setup a PXE/Boot server so all the client PC can connect to the server
for any disk Imaging maintenance.

I don't want to use Windows 2000 as server, i prefer Linux since i'm a
intermediate linux user. But googling on "ghost with Linux PXE" doesn't
return much result.

I understand the idea of using PXE but i'm not clear what program
should i use on server and client.

Can anybody point me out some ideas??


Thanks.

On Sun, 31 Dec 2006 01:03:52 -0800, maxchock wrote:

> I understand the idea of using PXE but i'm not clear what program
> should i use on server and client.
>
> Can anybody point me out some ideas??

Have a look at the SystemImager:
http://www.falkotimme.com/howtos/systemimager/

Or use like Kickstart to bootstrap Cfengine:
http://sial.org/howto/kickstart/

-Menno.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm operating a cyber cafe with 50 PCs in my outlet. my daily
> maintenance routine, I usually take out the hard disk and put in
> another one which have CD-ROM and run ghost version 8 on the bootable
> cd.

Don't you have problems with "users" stealing the drives?

> These is really a stupid way to do maintenance, so I found out my
> motherboard actually have LAN as booting device, so I'm thinking to
> setup a PXE/Boot server so all the client PC can connect to the server
> for any disk Imaging maintenance.
>
> I don't want to use Windows 2000 as server, i prefer Linux since i'm a
> intermediate linux user. But googling on "ghost with Linux PXE" doesn't
> return much result.
>
> I understand the idea of using PXE but i'm not clear what program
> should i use on server and client.
>
> Can anybody point me out some ideas??

It should be trivial. First you have to create harddrive images for each
machine on your fileserver. The ghost images does not work with the
standard Unix tools. Boot a kernel over PXE, mount a small root partition
either in RAM using TFTP or over NFS. Mount the folder with the images and
use dd or whatever your flavour is to rewrite the harddrive.

If you are really smart, use WOL to boot the machines remotely one at a
time, rewrite the drive, shutdown and continue with the next one. For extra
credit, use SMNP to report any problems back to the server.

--
Lasse Jensen [fafler at g mail dot com]
Linux, the choice of a GNU generation.

In comp.os.linux.networking (E-Mail Removed):
> Hi all,

> I'm operating a cyber cafe with 50 PCs in my outlet. my daily
> maintenance routine, I usually take out the hard disk and put in
> another one which have CD-ROM and run ghost version 8 on the bootable
> cd.

Dunno why you use a hd at all in your clients? It just makes
noise/heat, they tend to break and make lots of work.

Something like this just asks to run something like LTSP
http://www.ltsp.org/ which should reduce maintenance in order of
magnitudes. It might be a good idea to run most needed apps
(presuming browser) local on the thin clients if they are strong
enough, though this would need some testing. If you run anything
on the LTSP server you want to look into restricting client
resources.

Good luck

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 1: clock speed

Lasse Jensen wrote:
> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> Don't you have problems with "users" stealing the drives?

no, the harddisk is well lock inside the cpu casing..

> It should be trivial. First you have to create harddrive images for each
> machine on your fileserver. The ghost images does not work with the
> standard Unix tools. Boot a kernel over PXE, mount a small root partition
> either in RAM using TFTP or over NFS. Mount the folder with the images and
> use dd or whatever your flavour is to rewrite the harddrive.
>
> If you are really smart, use WOL to boot the machines remotely one at a
> time, rewrite the drive, shutdown and continue with the next one. For extra
> credit, use SMNP to report any problems back to the server.
>
> --
> Lasse Jensen [fafler at g mail dot com]
> Linux, the choice of a GNU generation.

Michael Heiming wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.networking (E-Mail Removed):
> > Hi all,
>
> > I'm operating a cyber cafe with 50 PCs in my outlet. my daily
> > maintenance routine, I usually take out the hard disk and put in
> > another one which have CD-ROM and run ghost version 8 on the bootable
> > cd.
>
> Dunno why you use a hd at all in your clients? It just makes
> noise/heat, they tend to break and make lots of work.
>
each of the client serve as gaming PC also, so the hard disk is
necessary to be there(correct me if i'm wrong.).


> Something like this just asks to run something like LTSP
> http://www.ltsp.org/ which should reduce maintenance in order of
> magnitudes. It might be a good idea to run most needed apps
> (presuming browser) local on the thin clients if they are strong
> enough, though this would need some testing. If you run anything
> on the LTSP server you want to look into restricting client
> resources.
>
> Good luck
>
> --
> Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
> mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
> #bofh excuse 1: clock speed

In comp.os.linux.networking (E-Mail Removed):

> Michael Heiming wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.networking (E-Mail Removed):
>> > Hi all,

>> > I'm operating a cyber cafe with 50 PCs in my outlet. my daily
>> > maintenance routine, I usually take out the hard disk and put in
>> > another one which have CD-ROM and run ghost version 8 on the bootable
>> > cd.

>> Dunno why you use a hd at all in your clients? It just makes
>> noise/heat, they tend to break and make lots of work.

> each of the client serve as gaming PC also, so the hard disk is
> necessary to be there(correct me if i'm wrong.).

And is likely to run doze, so I will not bother to think any more
about your problems.

Good luck

>> Something like this just asks to run something like LTSP
>> http://www.ltsp.org/ which should reduce maintenance in order of

[..]

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 379: We've picked COBOL as the language of choice.

On 2006-12-31, Menno Duursma <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> On Sun, 31 Dec 2006 01:03:52 -0800, maxchock wrote:
>
>> I understand the idea of using PXE but i'm not clear what program
>> should i use on server and client.
>>
>> Can anybody point me out some ideas??
>
> Have a look at the SystemImager:
> http://www.falkotimme.com/howtos/systemimager/
>
> Or use like Kickstart to bootstrap Cfengine:
> http://sial.org/howto/kickstart/
>
> -Menno.

Hi,
i'm using FAI (http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/) for
multiple installation's.
FAI ist for Debian.

Greetings Rainer

I need to use windows XP for the client pc... since their purpose is
mainly for games. FAI is only for Debian Linux right??

Thanks.

Max.


On Jan 6, 4:03 am, Rainer Fleischhacker <rai...@rmfausi.uugrn.org>
wrote:
> On 2006-12-31, Menno Duursma <p...@desktop.lan> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 31 Dec 2006 01:03:52 -0800, maxchock wrote:
>
> >> I understand the idea of using PXE but i'm not clear what program
> >> should i use on server and client.
>
> >> Can anybody point me out some ideas??
>
> > Have a look at the SystemImager:
> >http://www.falkotimme.com/howtos/systemimager/
>
> > Or use like Kickstart to bootstrap Cfengine:
> >http://sial.org/howto/kickstart/
>
> > -Menno.Hi,
> i'm using FAI (http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/) for
> multiple installation's.
> FAI ist for Debian.
>
> Greetings Rainer