Your Own Taste

The files/ directory stores by class all the files that FAI will copy to the target system. The hierarchy below files/ is based on the Debian directory tree. To illustrate this point: If you select the CC_HPCOMPAQ class, you will expect to find the menu.lst file in the client's /boot/grub directory later. For this to happen, you need to copy the contents of menu.lst into the files/boot/grub/menu.lst/CC_HPCOMPAQ/ directory. FAI does not automatically copy user-defined files below files/ to the target system; this only happens if the configuration script contains an fcopy command.

The command

fcopy -iM /boot/grub/menu.lst

copies the GRUB bootloader configuration file menu.lst to the client. It is part of the BC_LINUX class.

The /hooks directory contains programs or scripts for customizing the installation process. Finally, the scripts/ directory contains the scripts that FAI runs during the install. You can easily use fcopy to copy files on the basis of the client class or as a local command with the ${ROOTCMD} command.

In typical Unix style, FAI offers a number of scripting options. Besides legacy shell scripts, FAI will also run Perl or Cfengine scripts. Cfengine is a good choice for modifying configuration files.

Diagnostics

After planning, collating, and configuring installation files and scripts, you are finally ready to use FAI to automate the installation process on a large number of computers. The last step is to extend the DHCP and TFTP configurations in a way that will allow the new clients to boot off the network and automatically launch into the FAI installation. To do so, you just need to apply the settings for the first test run. Once the FAI client has completed the installation, it will display a summary onscreen and wait for somebody to press Return to trigger a reboot (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: At the end of the installation, FAI outputs a summary of installation information. Pressing Return restarts the new Debian system.

The FAI deployment framework stores all installation processes in logfiles on the server. If necessary, you can evaluate the files in the /-var/log/fai/ directory and check them for errors.

Remote Control

FAI is a versatile tool for automating the installation of DEB-based Linux distributions. In addition to x86, the automatic installer also supports Sparc and PowerPC architectures. The FAI installation solution is ideal for many situations, from computer clusters to heterogeneous IT infrastructures in enterprises. Once you have negotiated the learning curve, FAI provides a powerful tool capable of automating almost any Debian-based installation.