Fwd: Re: functionality

[George VerDuin]

Thanks very much Thomas.


On 02/21/2013 04:35 AM, Thomas Lange wrote:
> In /etc/fai we defined
> things for creating the nfsroot. Therefore /etc/fai/NFSROOT contains a
> list of packages to be installed into the
> nfsroot. /etc/fai/apt/sources.list is used for locating the package
> repository when creating the nfsroot. Package listed in
> package_config/FAIBASE (and similar files) are only used when
> installing the install clients. So, this is pretty normal in FAI and
> sometimes this confuses people.
As it did me...  May I explore variation from the development Debian
Squeeze?  I'm no fan of Pandora.

So using FAI "simple" example -- the native distro on the server
should build clones with the same distro for the client that
exists on the server using /etc/fai/... data structure. Variation on
archetecture and application packages is built into
.../package_config/... and  /etc/fai/NFSROOT... but only for one distro.

I have FAI server built on ubuntu 12.04.  Now borrowing from another
thread titled "does ARM Server also support FAI" and from the FAI site
documentation also, part of the answer for me seems to be to build
Debian ARM instance using a configuration found in
/etc/fai-debian.squeeze/...   We begin building a list of distros as
/etc/fai-distro.release/... so that .../NFSROOT may be taylored to build
with kernel-sensitive packages like inetramfs vs dracut for each
distro.  Seems like upstart also is part of the mix.

Likely that applications also vary, thus /srv/fai/config could also to
be a similar structure perhaps /srv/fai-distro.release/... so that the
build data in /srv/... follows /etc/...  This seems important when
packaging varies as in Fedora "http" vs Debian "apache".

Given that at fai-make-nfsroot time a kernel is built for cloning at PXE
time, it means to me that /src/tftp/fai will contain a catalog of all
kernels built for all clients.  I have not gone back far enough in the
archive to find discussion on the subject of having distro a parameter
and the parameter used to create a data structure.  Has
/etc/fai/distro/... been considered?


> This does not apply to the Ubuntu packages! I do not test them at all
> and currently noone cares about the FAI packages in Ubuntu. This is
> the reason why FAI and Ubuntu is not running so smooth as with Debian.
A major feature drawing me to FAI is pre-building a kernel for cloning
into various clients.  My prior approach was to catalog various CD/DVDs
and build from scratch [and kickstart] via PXE. Please consider that I
for one care about FAI on ubuntu.  Because various architectures and
distros fit my objectives, as I find variation from your preferred
Debian, I can commit to bring them to this reflector.  This does mean I
next create /etc/fai-debian.squeeze/... to create my foundation client
then perhaps work backwards into /etc/fai/... as my "default" ubuntu.12.04.

Is there something simpler?

Cheers
Geo