1. Introduction

For people who are involved in administrating networks of Linux computers installing or configuring computers is an everyday task. Whenever manual interaction is involved to set up and configure a computer, it is likely that you miss something which will lead to mistakes. Moreover, it is rather boring to perform the same task again and again. Thus it is clear that a system that lets you perform a non-interactive, network based automatic installation will surely save you a lot of time in the long run. That is what NAIS lets you do for ix86-architectures.

1.1 Disclaimer and Copyright

This document is Copyright © 2000 by Mattias Gärtner, Lech Nieroda and Jens Rühmkorf. Please see section Disclaimer and Copyright at the end of this document for information about redistribution of this document and the usual `we are not responsible for what you manage to break...' type legal stuff.

1.2 Intended Audience and Applicability

Most Linux users should never have to even look at this document because many Linux distributions do a pretty good job at aiding the user to set up and configure his system. The information in this document is aimed at users who have experience with administrating Linux machines and wish to set up a network automatic installation system using Debian GNU/Linux as distribution. Everything is ONLY tested to work for ix86-architectures.

1.3 Features

Just a short list of features NAIS has we thought an automatic installation system should have. Feel free to mail us if you miss something:

• The Linux distribution you use for your server does not need to be Debian GNU/Linux or even potato; we have set up a fully functional server system on SuSE 6.3 as well as on Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 using the same scripts.
• You can use the same kernel for installation that you use for running the client. The kernel just needs ramdisk- and initrd-support compiled in as well as the network device support to work.
• The use of initrd makes it possible to automatically install clients with "unusual" network interfaces, such as PCMCIA, whose support cannot be compiled into the kernel yet. NOTE: The initrd.gz we use does not support PCMCIA as it is, you have to add the needed binaries and modules yourself to make it work.
• There is no second reboot required -- pretty much the same like some other distributions do it.
• Uses a convenient "class" concept for configuring.
• The tool setup_harddisks lets you specify general rules for partitioning and formatting the client's local hard disks; preserving already created partitions is possible as well.
• All parameters are passed to the client using DHCP.
• We took care to keep everything RFC-compliant so you should be able to use etherboot, netboot, pxelinux or BpBatch to boot over network.
• A sysinfo mode that just gathers some significant information about the client and gives you a shell (remember, telnet client 2323 instantly reboots the client, so you can care less about the shell). Other modes possible but not implemented yet.
• The sysinfo and install mode let you establish a secure terminal session to the "install-client" using ssh (once sshd is up and running). Idea from Thomas Gebhardt.
• You can request your client via tcp to reboot, at any time, in case the installation fails. Gets quite handy when the client you want to install is 400 meters away ;)

1.4 Wishlist

Just some features we thought an automatic installation system should have which we did not have the time or resources to implement yet.

• A backup mode.
• Better debconf support. So far we only use debconf's feature to run apt in "non-interactive" mode.
• Adapt setup_harddisks to work with reiserfs.
• Make a debian package of NAIS.
• We did not have time to add support for etherboot yet, only netboot works as well as pxelinux and BpBatch.
• Not concerning NAIS but still important: There happens to be no debian package for etherboot yet (but for netboot there is one). Hmm. Time to become a debian package maintainer.
• Make an anonymous (pserver) CVS repository available for those who want to have the latest and greatest ;)

1.5 New versions of NAIS and this document

You can always find the latest version of NAIS as well as the most recent version of this document on the World Wide Web via the URL http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/nais/.

1.6 Feedback and corrections

If you have questions or comments about this document, please feel free to mail us at nais@informatik.uni-koeln.de. We welcome any suggestions or criticisms. If you find a mistake within this document or experience any problems using NAIS, please let us know so we can correct it in the next version. Thanks.