We're getting closer to have some nice solutions to using cobbler and
koan to help manage alternative OS's, at least in a virtualized state.
Here's an example of something you can do now using the git/devel version:
cobbler image add --name=f5 --file=/path/to/iso.image
Note that you can assign virtual metadata at this point as well, such as
--virt-ram like you can with the profile. I haven't added all the
command line options yet, but if you tweak /var/lib/cobbler/images you
can adjust these variables. This also works now:
koan --image=f5 --virt --server=cobbler.example.org
The above will allow installing OS's that are /not Linux/, provided you
have an ISO image for them. cobbler assumes every host can get to the
ISO path in exactly the same way, in this case, so assume you have them
all NFS mounted in the same place on each host.
The next step is to make it smarter:
cobbler image add --name=f5 --file=nfs://user@host:/path/to/iso.image
And have it auto-mount the images so the path restrictions no longer
apply. We'll also keep the file based way for other storage types.
After that, we are also going to make it so that a cobbler system object
can optionally depend on a image instead of a profile. This will allow
DHCP reservations for image based installs and other cool things like
that... in addition to providing a chance to override the virtualized
data kept on record with the image.
The next thing after that is for it to be able to handle virtualized
images, i.e. providing some glue around virt-clone and such so you don't
have to deal with XML.
Sound good? Questions? Are there things you'd like to see in this?
Thanks!
--Michael
Show replies by date