2.4. Installing an Image Server

To create a SystemImager image server, you must install a systemimager-boot package(s)and then a systemimager-server package that supports your clients.

The boot packages support multiple configurations. Because different client configurations require different drivers, kernel versions, etc., SystemImager allows you to install different boot packages, which are known as "boot flavors."

Each SystemImager release provides the "standard" flavors for each supported architecture. For example, the 3.0.0 release should have these packages: systemimager-boot-i386-standard_3.0.0-1_all.deb, systemimager-boot-ia64-standard_3.0.0-1_all.deb, systemimager-i386boot-standard.noarch.rpm, and systemimager-ia64boot-standard.noarch.rpm

SystemImager and its standard boot flavors support most common hardware configurations. The .config files list the options for this kernel.

You can use other flavors at any time to support alternate client configurations, and mulitple boot flavors can be installed simultaneously. However, boot packages are strongly coupled to the version of SystemImager for which they were created. The SystemImager boot package version strings should match the version string of the installed version of SystemImager.

To install an image server for Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (woody) and later, run:

  1. # apt-get update

  2. # apt-get install systemimager-server

Note

To obtain the latest systemimager release on a Debian system running stable or testing, you must add the following line to the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://download.systemimager.org/debian stable main

These packages are synchronized with the packages in the unstable distribution periodically. Because systemimager's dependencies are available in both the latest stable and unstable releases, we just copy over the binary packages - we do not rebuild them.

For RPM based distributions:

  1. Download and install the systemimager-server RPM and required dependencies from http://systemimager.org/download/ .

  2. Install each package with the rpm command.

    # rpm -Uvh *.rpm

  3. The rpms leave the systemimager service disabled by default, so you will need to start the systemimager service in order to make images available to your clients via rsync.

    To make systemimager automatically start each time you boot your system, run:

    chkconfig --add systemimager

    You can list the set of runlevels where systemimager will be automatically started by running:

    chkconfig --list systemimager

    To start systemimager by hand, run:

    service systemimager start

For other distributions: If your distribution does not support RPMs or .debs, you must build and install from the source tarball; binary tarball installations are no longer supported. Instructions for building SystemImager can be found in the README file within the source tarball.

Installing Flamethrower for multicast installations. See Chapter 4, HOWTO Use Flamethrower for Multicast Installs