DrakAutoInst: Creating a Boot Disk for a (Semi-)Automated Installation

Abstract

This tool allows a system administrator to replicate an installation on many machines by not having to reconfigure all steps by hand for each machine.

The principle behind this feature is quite straight forward. Let's imagine you have 10 identical machines for a computer lab on which you want to install GNU/Linux. These are the steps to follow:

  1. Make the installation on machine number 1;

  2. Create the automatic installation boot disk by following the steps below on machine number 1;

  3. Boot each of the nine machines with this boot disk so that the installation made on the first machine is replicated on all the others.

Tip

If you make the 1st machine's installation using a network packages media (NFS for example) instead of a CD-ROM, you will not need to insert all installation CD-ROMs when replicating the installation.

Figure 15.3. Choosing the Steps to Replay

Choosing the Steps to Replay

The interface consists of a list of most of the installation steps. Each step has a two-entry menu associated:

When you have made your choice for each installation step, click on the OK button. You will be asked to insert a blank floppy disk (if it is not blank, all data it contains will be erased).

After clicking OK again, the boot floppy disk will be created with the following characteristics:

Then, all you have to do is to insert the resulting floppy in the machine you want to replicate the installation on, turn it on, and configure the few remaining steps manually, thus saving a lot of time.