packages avail during install

[Toomas Tamm]

On Tue, 2014-07-08 at 10:15 -0500, Peter Keller wrote:

> 
> As some feedback, some of the hardest things to figure out with FAI is
> (in no particular order):
> 
> A) Figure out how choose a 32-bit or 64-bit installation from a 64-bit
> fai server.
> 
> B) Choosing between different distros (to install) on the install client
> that are different from the fai server distro. (Multiple NFSROOTS? How
> do I choose between them? etc) The interaction of the NFSROOT and the
> base.tar.gz is confusing.

Set up classes for everything. Start from your hostname (or IP address
or MAC address or some other unique identifier) and initialize classes
using if-then-else or case statements or arrays or whatever suits your
purpose. This goes into scripts in the "class" directory. CPU bit-ness
may also be inferred from /proc/cpuinfo .

Create a basefile for any distro you are going to install, and set up
the corresponding class. Eg, if you want to install wheezy 32 bit, call
the basefile WHEEZY32.tar.gz and "echo WHEEZY32" somewhere in your class
scripts.

> D) How do I manage an nfsroot effectively? I shouldn't make changes to
> it so I can regenerate it easily, but I have to, so what's the best way
> to manage this?

Configuration management (cfengine, puppet) or custom scripts. Do not
trust human memory :-), automate every minute detail. It will pay off in
the long run.

>  It would be nice
> if the /tmp/fai/fai.log file was pushed to the fai-monitor daemon so
> I could click on a little expander in the fai-monitor-gui and see the
> realtime output of the machine as it is installing. 

You can also ssh into the machine being installed and look at files
in /tmp/fai . "less +F /tmp/fai/fai.log" may be all you need. If you are
installing a virtual host, you can attach a virtual serial console for
the same purpose.

Toomas