Automated Deployment- Myth?

[Matthew Palmer]

On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 04:33:43AM +0100, killfire wrote:
> I have been trying to find one instance or description of Dapper's
> automated deployment as described in the alternative install cd being
> used, and I cant. Does it exist? Is there simply no documentation? I
> have been searching the wiki, the forums, google, and can't find
> anything.

I don't know how much documentation exists out there, but I didn't bother
looking too much -- I just used an instalinux CD (http://instalinux.com/),
which uses preseeding to tell d-i what to do, and I've now got a CD that'll
install Breezy while asking only four questions (IP/netmask/gateway/DNS),
and that'd go down to zero if I could use DHCP in this environment.

> Basically my longer term goal will be to set up an install cd that will
> automatically set up computers to interact in a windows active directory
> environment- authenticate users, get their home directories, etc.

I'd recommend, from personal experience with FAI, Kickstart, shell scripts,
CFEngine, and Puppet, to only develop an auto-installer to do the very
minimum (effectively little more than a bootstrap) and then run Puppet to do
the rest.  It'll help you evolve your existing systems over time (which FAI
and Kickstart simply can't do sufficiently), is more declarative and hence
readable than shell scripts, and it's a lot less insane than trying to do it
with CFEngine.

> However, before I get too involved I want to see what has been done
> already- so what is the status of the automated deployment of Ubuntu?

Piece of cake.

- Matt