we have to install 630+ SLED 11 SP 3 on a UEFI desktop machines, with all the same configuration like
a) partitioning
b) software selection
c) additional 3rd party software like IBM Lotus Notes, nomachine client etc
d) network configuration (dhcp client)
e) joining MS AD Domain
f) printer configuration
so please recommend what would be the best approach to achieve the above ? would you recommend AutoYast or Software like Clonezilla or anything better ?
Regards,
ms
On 06/10/2014 11:54 PM, sharfuddin wrote:[color=blue]
we have to install 630+ SLED 11 SP 3 on a UEFI desktop machines, with
all the same configuration like[/color]
What do you mean by “all the same configuration”? When joining a domain
you cannot have every system have the same workstation name, so I presume
that part needs to be dynamic/variable, right? Will all systems be hooked
to the same printer (seems highly unlikely)
[color=blue]
a) partitioning
b) software selection
c) additional 3rd party software like IBM Lotus Notes, nomachine client
etc
d) network configuration (dhcp client)
e) joining MS AD Domain
f) printer configurationso please recommend what would be the best approach to achieve the above
? would you recommend AutoYast or Software like Clonezilla or anything
better ?[/color]
Cloning disks is probably faster in the long run since you do not need to
have any logic figuring out which packages to apply, detecting hardware,
etc., but it sounds like you have things that must be variable so the
slight (potential) performance penalty for using AutoYast instead of just
cloning drives may be worth it. If you setup software repositories
correctly even the third-party stuff can be installed that way and in the
end it’s really fast and pretty amazing how much configuration you can get
done. Plus, should you find something needing adjustment after the first
n-thousand boxes are done, it’s trivial to make a change for all the
others, and then go back and adjust the first ones too.
–
Good luck.
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Hi
Along with AutoYaST and ab’s comments, have you investigated cobbler?
http://www.cobblerd.org/
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.11.10-11-desktop
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I’ve never used clonezilla, but a,b,c,d and f can be done with AutoYast and I suspect e could be as well using a post-install script.
The thing that’s always bugged me about images is that they go out of date. You image the machine, then there’s an ever increasing number of updates that need to be installed afterwards. You could keep updating the image to include the latest updates, but who wants to do that? (Not the guy who has to do that for our Windows image 
) I include the Updates repos in my AutoYaST profile so whenever a machine gets installed all available updates get installed at the same time. Though I suspect that’s not possible unless you have a local copy of the updates repos, which brings me to…
Given the number machines you have, if you haven’t already, look at Subscription Management Tool. Even if you ignore all the other functionality, it’s great for maintaining a local copy of all the relevant repos and the testing and production repo concept gives you an easy way to deploy updates to a few machines ahead of the others for testing.
I put third party software in a local repository which I specify as an Add-On product in my AutoYaST profile.
I don’t do any printer set up with AutoYaST. Not all the machines I manage are in the same building and there’s no point machines in building A having printers in building B listed. I have a script on the machines that sets up relevant printers and set a default queue depending on the machine’s location. (I am able to determine the machine’s location from it’s IP address.) The script is part of an rpm package. As and when printers change I update the script, rebuild the rpm package with a higher version number and the machines install it as an update.
Hi ms,
we’re getting machines by the hundreds with pre-imaged disks from the manufacturer (and are able to write a new image via network - but that’s not what you want when mass-installing ). The images boot via DHCP and receive configuration info to access i.e. an LDAP server, from where they pull additional info and individualize on demand.
In the end, this is all part of a more complex systems management solution (for thousands of machines).
Regards,
Jens
Hi Mike,
it all depends on the scale of things. Getting hundreds of machines pre-imaged from the manufacturer is comparatively cheap. Of course you need to update on occasion, but you still save a lot of network traffic when installing fresh machines… even if you had to update half of the packages with an older image - the other 50% didn’t need to get sent to the machine. And when talking about large businesses, only urgent updates get sent to the machines, thus it takes quite a while until the necessary updates for a fresh system pile up.
And every year or another you’ll end up replacing bigger bunches of machines - you test-install one, take the image, get the other machines mastered during production, done.
Regards,
Jens
On Wed, 11 Jun 2014 05:54:01 +0000, sharfuddin wrote:
sharfuddin wrote:
[color=blue]
we have to install 630+ SLED 11 SP 3 on a UEFI desktop machines, with
all the same configuration like
a) partitioning
b) software selection
c) additional 3rd party software like IBM Lotus Notes, nomachine client
etc
d) network configuration (dhcp client) e) joining MS AD Domain
f) printer configurationso please recommend what would be the best approach to achieve the above
? would you recommend AutoYast or Software like Clonezilla or anything
better ?[/color]
For Linux Desktops I use an image from a TFTP server, Zenworks Preboot
Services and Imaging. Probably other desktop management systems support
Linux as well. I have no experience with images on systems configured to
boot with UEFI. Most of your points a) to f) probably with the exception
of e) can be done automatically with a well prepared image and DHCP.
For Linux servers I prefer AutoYaST as this is more flexible and I do not
have that many identical servers. For just a few installations the work
involved with preparing the image is not justified by the faster imaging
process.
With that many desktop systems you will need a capable management
solution for patching, configuration, or changes in packages. As these
include an imaging tool it might be best just to use this. But then for
preparing the master image in a predictive and well documented way
AutoYaST is your friend again. It is also very flexible when confronted
with various hardware and, as Mike has already explained, can handle
third party software and allows for scripts doing stuff the SUSE
installer is not set up to do.
Günther