Folks:

Thanks for considering this post. We're planning to deploy about 100 workstation images that will dual-boot Windows XP & CentOS 5.2. We're looking for the best way to get a configuration updated on the Linux boxes. We've used Symantec Ghost in the past which successfully gets the images onto the machines. Ghost does a nice configuration refresh and reset on the Windows partitions. However, the Linux boxes need to be manually re-configured for hostname, etc. which is simple for ~20 machines or so. We're looking for a way to automate the Linux configuration, and deploy 100+ machines with ease.

At this point, I'm thinking of writing a simple BASH script that will boot to runlevel 1, prompt for the workstation name, then take care of the rest automatically. However, this will still mandate that we go to each workstation and initiate the script. We're looking for an even simpler way.

Any help is appreciated: TIA.

Bob

Clonezilla[1], is one open-source and free solution you could look at. Basically involves setting up one system, and mirroring it across all the others. It's got some good ideas going for it, including the use of unicast to distribute the data to all workstations.

[1]http://clonezilla.org/

Ronald.

Maybe you can use the MAC address in the bash script of the NICs to give each workstation an unique hostname.

Thanks guys, so far. I've used Clonezilla quite a bit. It works great, but doesn't offer the configuration option that I need. I'll check into the MAC address option. I appreciate your input.