[cobbler] Kickstaring across a site-to-site link

James Clendenan james.clendenan at gmail.com
Sat Aug 16 04:38:45 UTC 2014


One other option is to request the remote vlan/network get a dhcp helper pointed from the layer 3 switch/router(s) to your cobbler server. This should allow you to get a copy of the dhcp calls and respond if required (like setting next-server for machines you manage)

Most switches allow multiple dhcp helpers so the network team can keep theirs for ip's and DNS etc and your cobbler server can just talk to things you need to take over. 

Hope that helps as well

James

> On Aug 15, 2014, at 10:08 AM, Caleb Moniot <calebm at elementaltechnologies.com> wrote:
> 
> Thank you both for your prompt replies! This give me some good avenues to explore. I've contacted IT about possible network configuration changes to see what the options are. I'll also be setting up a slave cobbler server in a VM here then migrate it to the remote site once configuration is complete. Alastair, that doc will come in very handy. I'll see about putting it into production. 
> 
> Again, thank you for your assistance.
> 
> -Caleb
> 
> 
>> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 6:21 AM, Greg Chavez <greg.chavez at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I echo Alastair's comments. I've been using a slave cobbler server to handle kicks at two data centers for four years now. Works quite excellently.
>> 
>> --Greg
>> 
>> 
>>> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 5:28 AM,  <alastair at alastair-munro.com> wrote:
>>> Hi
>>> 
>>> You are probably best creating a local cobbler slave server. This will also save doing installs across your wan link. I wrote this recently that might help: https://github.com/cobbler/cobbler/wiki/Speeding%20up%20triggers%20to%20sync%20remote%20cobbler%20servers
>>> 
>>> Or a vlan that traverses data centers? Install on vlan and the swap IPs/vlan after build?
>>> 
>>> Alastair
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 2014-08-15 01:53, Caleb Moniot wrote:
>>>> Cobblers,
>>>> 
>>>> I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation so I'm hoping some
>>>> others in the cobbler community can lend me the benefit of their
>>>> experience in this scenario.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm in a environment where I don't have control over the DHCP
>>>> configuration. To get around this I setup cobbler and used dnsmasq's
>>>> proxy-dhcp feature. This has been working great but now we've grown
>>>> beyond our current server room and have added a new building with a
>>>> site-to-site link. The servers I need to kickstart to are across this
>>>> link. Everything's routed so I can access the systems (physical, VM
>>>> hosts, etc) normally when they have and OS. The problem is that my
>>>> cobbler server now can't hear their DHCP requests so they don't pxe
>>>> boot.
>>>> 
>>>> For the time being I'm using the buildiso feature of cobbler to create
>>>> an ISO that contains all the system entries for the servers across the
>>>> link and using that to boot them for kickstarting. This gets them
>>>> kickstarted but we're in a testing environment so this process will be
>>>> done frequently (sometimes multiple times per day).  Manually
>>>> booting, selecting the correct system entry, then detaching the ISO
>>>> once complete will quickly become cumbersome when kickstarting lots of
>>>> systems.
>>>> 
>>>> So far what's I've considered is:
>>>> 
>>>>         * Direct connect from cobbler server to remote site.
>>>>         * Mirrored cobbler server at remote site.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Are there any other features of cobbler that I could leverage to solve
>>>> this problem or does anyone else have recommendations from their
>>>> experience in a similar situation?
>>>> 
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>> 
>>>> Caleb Moniot
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> cobbler mailing list
>>>> cobbler at lists.fedorahosted.org
>>>> https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> cobbler mailing list
>>> cobbler at lists.fedorahosted.org
>>> https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> cobbler mailing list
>> cobbler at lists.fedorahosted.org
>> https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
> 
> _______________________________________________
> cobbler mailing list
> cobbler at lists.fedorahosted.org
> https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/cobbler/attachments/20140815/9dafa0b7/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the cobbler mailing list