Using make-fai-bootfloppy on an Ubuntu Hoary 5.04 FAI nfsroot

[Martin Tanzer]

    Doploying Ubuntu(Hoary) with FAI


        Introduction

The method discribed at
http://www.sprang.de/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_install_with_FAI did not work
for me at all with the following spcifications:

    * FAI 2.8
    * Install Server: sarge
    * Target System: Ubuntu hoary

/fai-setup/ does not finish, because there are lots of unresolvable
depencies und missing packages. Even if I tweaked in the /chroot/ and
installed missing packages from other distributions, I ran into perl
(and other) troubles ion the targetsystem. So I decided to change the
strategy.


      The way it works

    * Install fai on a sarge system
    * Run fai-setup and set it up to your needs
    * Chose an install kernel - I think it is better to build it from
      2.6 because the target system will use a kernel 2.6
    * Run make-fai-bootfloppy
    * Test it  ;-) 
    * Move /usr/lib/fai/nfsroot to /usr/lib/fai/nfsroot.sarge
    * Install ubuntus debootstrap
    * Set FAI_DEBOOTSTRAP="hoary http://$mirrorhost/ubuntu" (or
      something) in make-fai-nfsroot
    * Set /etc/fai/source.list to ubuntu sources
    * Run /make-fai-nfsroot/. If it fails, execute

cd /usr/lib/fai/nfsroot
mount -t proc /proc proc
chroot .

    * Try to install the missing packages from where ever. Leave the
      chroot with CTRL-D
    * Rerun

make-fai-nfsroot -v -r

    * As long as you don't get a message /Building base.tgz/ repeat the
      chroot trick.
    * Once base.tgz is buildt, you are done. Move nfsroot to nfsroot.hoary
    * Move nfsroot.sarge back to nfsroot
    * Copy the content of /nfsroot.hoary/var/tmp/ to /nfsroot/var/tmp/
      (base-pkgs.lis base.tgz packages.arch)
    * Set /nfsroot/etc/apt/source.list/ to ubunto sources
    * Its safe to restart the nfs-server
    * Change the kernel to /linux-image-686/ in DEFAULT
    * To build a desktop system add somewhere the package /ubuntu-desktop/
    * Start the target system, get a bier and enjoy the unattended
      installation. After a reboot your desktop should come up with a
      configured xserver.

martin tanzer, m.tanzer at x509.at