Linux installation automation
 

Hi All,

I am trying to do a automated test bed steup which would require the following:

1) Install any flavor of linux given the iso image.
2) add 2 normal users
3) start the telnet service

I tried the method of preseeding and remastering iso, but that becomes specific to an iso image.

The script should take care of installing linux without any manual intervention and should be able to do post installation procedure of adding two users and starting the service.. I am completely lost now and dont know where to start.. Could anyone please suggest a method to do this? It would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance.

There are tools to help you do this, but all of them are going to require a good bit of work and setup. You don't say if you're going to identical hardware each time, or to different setups, which will definitely impact what you're trying to do.

If you're going to the same hardware over and over, using something like mondoarchive, mkcdrec, systemimager, or any of the other tools suggested on here several times for this same question, will do it for you. Just build one system, and 'snapshot' it with one of these tools. The users/states/services will all be saved, and be ready to go.

Different hardware is problematic. Part of the problem with most 'snapshot' tools, is that they build a mini kernel, which has your current hardware config in it, and not much else. So if you're new system has a different disk controller, the image may not see ANY disk drives to restore to, and die. Kickstart will do a total system load, as if from scratch, and detect the hardware as it builds. Doing other things, like configuring telnet (unsafe! use SSH!), and adding users can be done with a separate script after the system is built. But Kickstart only works with RedHat, as far as I know.

If you want something to build different Linux distros with one tool, the recovery tools I mentioned would be the way to go, but you'll have problems with hardware.

Hi,

Thanks a lot for the inputs. Now there is a bit of twist here. I am doing this as a project in my M.S program. So I am trying to create a framework that will enable installation of linux. Now this can be any one flavor of the linux say debian (or)Redhat. I was thinking of writing a shell script that will do installation( by invoking kickstart and feeding it with the options) and then add users and start the telnet. Is there a posibility of writing a shell script that will run from Cygwin and do the tasks. Is it possible that way? or is there any other way? I am totally confused and see only this option. Are there any options?? Please help!!!

Thank You!

Kickstart is only for RedHat. As I said, automatic installation is tricky, given the different hardware. Multiple distros makes it even worse.

You could do a custom build of one of the live-cd versions of linux, and put your script in it, but you said you didn't want any manual intervention. Now you say you want a shell script you can run with options?

Also, if this is for a school project, shouldn't you be figuring out a course of action?