Introduction
Modern IT environments do require a high level of automation depending on complexity and business requirements. Manual installations and configurations take a long time, are prone to human failure and often lack decent documentation.
To work around this, even the installation of the operating system should be automated from scratch, so every single instance will be configured consistently according to company requirements. This should be consistent even across multiple users.
There are multiple was to achieve that. One of the best solutions available is the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE), which allows to boot a computer from the network and define the next steps. Using DHCP, DNS and a ‘Next Server” running TFTP, you can install an operating system and typically are ready to use your new system within a few minutes.
Objectives
- . Using a hypervisor of your choice ( i.e. VMware, VirtualBox, KVM, Proxmox etc), create a virtual machine with 4 GB of RAM , >= 50 GB of disk space and 2 separate network interfaces, one of which must be in a host-only network.
- manually install Linux (CentOS 7, Ubuntu Server, Debian). an installation from live DVD is ok, although a minimum or network installation is preferred.
- ensure LVM is set up to allow extending the OS on the fly if required
- ensure you can access the VM remotely via SSH,, so openssh must be installed. using SSH keys is preferred over password.
- install and configure Cobbler. The setup needs include DHCP (running on the host-only network) and DNS.
- create a template to automatically install another Linux OS running in a separate VM on the same host-only network, accessible via SSH.
optionally:
- create a shell script containing all the required steps to recreate the cobbler environment
- create git repo and upload the shell script.
Requirements
- Desktop PC or Laptop with minimum 8 GB of RAM
- Linux, Windows or MAC OS
- Basic Linux skills
- Internet access
About The Author
