Linux 2005

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Philip Hands - hands.com

Preseeding Debian GNU/Linux for automated installations

This talk describes how to partially, or completely automate installations of Debian GNU/Linux, by use of the preseed feature of the new debian-installer. It will contrast this with other approaches, such as FAI, mondo, and golden-image installers, as well as suggesting ways of achieving ongoing maintainability with cfengine or subversion/CVS storage for configuration files.

While many people often use these approaches for building clusters of identical machines, the talk will be emphasising an approach that allows a mix of machine types to be installed and maintained with relatively little effort, while preserving the flexibility of using the normal package maintenance approach for the machines once installed.

If there is enough time left, it will also cover the idea of using a preseeded install to bootstrap a machine to the point where it can restore itself from a backup server.