adding more web servers to make web server farm
 

I have created a web server farm and so far every time I add a computer I have been installing from the cd and configuring it to be like the other computers. Is it possible to make an image of the web servers and then just install the entire image onto one of the other servers? I have heard alot about ghosting and was wondering if that can apply to my situation. Can someone let me know if this is possible or point me to some documentation that could help me.

Thanks

Kickstart works on RH, not sure if any other distro's use it, boots your cd or network image.
Can also be run for a network install if you have a dhcp server to tell it where to find the image.

I was reading about kickstart on the Redhat Website. I like the automated install part but I don't understand how I can use kickstart to install an image of one of my other web servers so that I can clone it into another web server. Is that just not possible? From what I read, when I initially boot the system from the CD, I tell it to boot using the dhcp server. Then, in the dhcp server conf file I specify the location of the kickstart configuration file on the network which has the answers to all the installation questions. Where do I get it to use the disk image of my web server?

If I use kickstart, do I still have to swap out the different Distribution CD's while it is installing?

Thank you for replying

I ain't done this in a while, so I'm probably wrong on the details, but I am dead certain you can use an image off the network.
If I recall correctly, your dhcp server will indicate the location of the ks.cfg file, which should be able to point to the network location of your image, as well as provide parameters for the install.

Ghosting is probably the easiest way for you to go. However, it's also probably the most expensive. Their licenseing requires a license for each machine ghosted. (At least, last I checked, and this is for the corp version.) I've not tried the RH solution the gentlemen above was talking about, so I can't make any comparisons.

Other ways of doing it:

HDD duplicators, these are fun.
dd (heh.)
Amphus Managesite http://www.amphus.com/products/managesite.asp (I highly recommend this for a webfarm enviroment.)

www.partimage.org

Ghosting software. Works great!