I have 3 very similar systems on my LAN (only the video and sound cards are different), and I'd like each machine to have an identical installation of Debian. I was planning on doing this by having a master machine which is installed from a netinstall, and then have the other two machines download all packages from my master machine. That means that whenever I update the master machine, the other two machines could download all the update packages from that master machine via Synaptic.

So the question is ... is this possible, is it easy enough to be feasible?

Each machine will have pre-determined IP addresses, so I will be able to point to the IP address of the master machine, and I will have it running an FTP server.

Also, minimising downloads from the Internet is important and I have to pay for downloads, and I'd hate to pay for the OS 3 times.

Many thanks,
Stephen Fraser

Think the best way to go is with something like an apt-proxy, but about fully installing the system I am not sure.