QuickStartGuide

Quick start guide for SystemImager v5 pre

Requirements

• An installed and supported distro (CentOS-6, CentOS-7, Fedora-27, Fedora-28)
• all packages needed for booting a network client:
  • DHCP server, tftp-server, PXE binaries (syslinux-tftpboot)
• systemimager packages (deb needs packaging update)
  • For rpm based distro, look for oscar-release rpm in http://svn.oscar.openclustergroup.org/repos/unstable/ and install it; it'll configure the repo for you. (This repo is subject to change in the future for a SystemImager dedicated one). => example: rpm -ivh http://svn.oscar.openclustergroup.org/repos/unstable/rhel-7-x86_64/oscar-release-6.1.3-0.20180425.el7.centos.noarch.rpm
  • yum -y install systemimager-server dracut-systemimager systemimager-x86_64initrd_template systemimager-common systemimager-x86_64boot-standard

Configurations

• /etc/systemimager/systemimager.conf => Check if all default values suit your needs and filesystem hierarchy.

• DHCP

  • /usr/sbin/si_mkdhcpserver => This will produce a /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf file. Check it and tweak it for your needs, then restart the dhcpd service on systemd: systemctl restart dhcpd.service on init.d: service dhcpd restard

• PXE

  • /usr/sbin/si_mkbootserver

• Rsync

  • si_mkrsyncd_conf

• Systemimager parameters: => Systemimager supports multiple ways to specify parameters.

  • DHCP options traditional way, but it only supports few parameters: image-server, log-server-port, ssh-download-url, flamethrower-directory-port-base and tmpfs-staging

  • PXE cmdline just like any dracut based initramfs, systemimager supports cmdline parameters all starting with the "si." prefix. => see SystemImager imager parameters.

  • configs directory: /var/lib/systemimager/scripts/configs/ it contains files with systemimager variables similar to local.cfg except that it's not local ;-) The file is retreived once network is established. it is either specified using the si.config= PXE cmdline parameter or if a ${IMAGENAME}.conf exists in this directory, then it is read.

  • disks-layouts directory: /var/lib/systemimager/scripts/disks-layouts it contains files with disks layout in xml format. man autoinstallscript.conf for description of format. example (see template): /etc/systemimager/autoinstallconf.template

  • local.cfg (deprecated but still supported) Same as above except it is read from old hard drive or from a floppy (USB stick will be supported later). example: /usr/share/doc/systemimager-server/local.cfg

Creating the image

• Using golden client and si_getimage
• Using mksiimage from systeminstaller-oscar package

Deploying the image

• 1st of all

Monitoring the deployment

• si_monitor_tk

More

• recreating a new systemimager boot initrd using si_mkbootpackage