SystemImager® v4.9.1 Manual

Andrea Righi
Ari Jort
Austin Gonyou
Ben Spade
Brian Elliott Finley
Curtis Zinzilieta
Dann Frazier
Denise Walters
Greg Pratt
Jason R. Mastaler
Josh Aas

SystemImager was created by Brian Elliott Finley. The current maintainer and team lead of the project is Andrea Righi.

SystemImager is software that automates Linux installs, software distribution, and production deployment. SystemImager makes it easy to do automated installs (clones), software distribution, content or data distribution, configuration changes, and operating system updates to your network of Linux machines. You can even update from one Linux release version to another.

It can also be used to ensure safe production deployments. By saving your current production image before updating to your new production image, you have a highly reliable contingency mechanism. If the new production enviroment is found to be flawed, simply roll-back to the last production image with a simple update command.

Some typical environments include: high performance clusters, Internet server farms, database server farms, computer labs, and corporate desktop environments.

Be sure to view the CREDITS file for a listing of other people who have contributed code or documentation that has been incorporated into SystemImager. Many thanks go to these people, as their relentless pursuit in the discovery bugs and the occasional code contribution are invaluable.

Trademark Notices

SystemImager® is a registered trademark of Brian Finley.

Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Debian® is a registered trademark of Software in the Public Interest, Inc.

Red Hat® is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Solaris® is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.


Table of Contents
1. Introduction to SystemImager®
1.1. SystemImager Overview
1.2. Who Should Use This Guide
1.3. How SystemImager Works
1.3.1. Supported Distributions
1.3.2. System Requirements
1.4. Glossary of Terms
2. Installing SystemImager
2.1. How Does it Work?
2.2. Obtaining SystemImager
2.3. Selecting A Machine To Use As An Image Server
2.4. Installing an Image Server
2.5. Selecting A Machine To Use As A Golden Client
2.6. Creating an Image on the Golden Client
2.7. Installing SystemImager Client Software on a Golden Client
2.8. Creating an Image from scratch
2.9. Upgrading SystemImager
2.9.1. Regenerating autoinstallscripts
2.9.2. Migrating Customizations of the /etc/systemimager/rsyncd.conf file to SystemImager 3.0.0
2.9.3. Regenerating boot media
2.9.4. What happened to the binary tarballs?
3. Using SystemImager
3.1. Installation Procedures Overview
3.1.1. Detailed Installation Instructions
3.1.2. SystemImager Tools
4. HOWTO Use BitTorrent for peer-to-peer Installs
4.1. Install SystemImager v3.7.4 or higher.
4.2. Configure the BitTorrent transport on the image server.
4.3. Configure the clients to use the BitTorrent transport.
4.4. Important notes
4.5. A Detailed Walk Through the Process
4.6. See also
5. HOWTO Use Flamethrower for Multicast Installs
5.1. Install SystemImager v3.2.x or higher
5.2. Install the Flamethrower Package and its Dependencies
5.3. Run si_getimage, si_mvimage, or si_cpimage
5.4. Start up your Flamethrower daemon
5.5. Tell your autoinstall clients to use Flamethrower
5.6. Autoinstall your clients!
5.7. A Detailed Walk Through the Process
5.8. See also
6. HOWTO Use OpenSSH for Secure Installs
6.1. Using OpenSSH for Secure Installs (requires SystemImager v3.8.x or higher)
6.2. Image server configuration
6.3. Client-driven approach
6.4. Configure the clients to use SSH transport (client-driven)
6.5. Server-driven approach
6.6. Configure the clients to use the SSH transport (server-driven)
6.7. Wait that the clients become ready to accept SSH connection
7. Monitoring clients installation with SystemImager
7.1. Overview
7.2. Setting up the monitor server
7.3. Enabling clients to send monitoring data
7.4. Troubleshooting
7.4.1. Clients do not appear
7.4.2. I've not a X server to see si_monitortk interface...
8. HOWTO Distribute configuration file across a SystemImager cluster
8.1. Install SystemImager v3.9.4 or higher.
8.2. Overview
8.3. Define the cluster topology
8.4. A simple example
8.5. See also
9. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
9.1. See also
10. Troubleshooting
10.1. What is the "ETHER_SLEEP" variable, and when should I adjust it?
10.2. si_getimage fails with a "Failed to retrieve /etc/systemimager/mounted_filesystems from <golden client>" message.
10.3. My client autoinstallation/update hangs, crashes, or is ridiculously slow.
10.4. My autoinstallcd doesn't boot.
10.5. My client failed to autoinstall, and when I run an rsync command on it manually, it takes forever for the image server to respond.
10.6. My client fails with the error: "chroot: cannot execute systemconfigurator: No such file or directory"
10.7. My client completes the autoinstall process successfully, but I get an "Invalid Partition Table" error upon reboot, and Linux never boots.
10.8. See also
List of Examples
2-1. Generating new autoinstallscripts
3-1. Running si_mkdhcpserver
3-2. Running si_updateclient with the "-autoinstall" and "-config" options
3-3. Running si_getimage
3-4. Entries in /etc/hosts created by si_addclients
3-5. Booting the autoinstall media from a running system's hard drive
8-1. Example 1: distribute the passwd, shadow and group to all the nodes
8-2. Example 2: distribute different access.conf to Login and Compute nodes
8-3. Example 3: close the second login node (node002) to non-privileged users
10-1. Installing SystemConfigurator into an Image on an Image Serer