Re: [gentoo-server] binary kernel package

[Todd M. Hébert]

If the servers are all identical hardware, I would just build one machine, then boot each other box off a live CD, and dd the contents of the entire drive/array over. (You could do this partition by partition as well.. but if you do the whole drive/array you only have to do it once.)

dd if=/dev/<DRIVE/ARRAY> | ssh root@host "dd of=/dev<DRIVE/ARRAY>"

That should do it. (as long as the hardware is identical.)  Of course.. it will take time to transfer, and you'll have to change the IP's & hostname of each server. This is a lot like making & deploying a GHOST image.. it's just skipping the "make" part and moving right to deploy.  You could also send it to a file, then DD the file into place on each host from a DVD if they're small enough (or bzip2 compress them to see if they can be made to fit.)

If you're doing machines that aren't identical, but you can use a standard structure for most disk elements (same size /boot, /, /var, /usr, etc..)  you can build one machine, create an image for each of the standard partitions, and dd those over.

You could create a tarball that has the kernel, including /boot, /usr/src, /lib/modules etc.., but you might not end up with world files that are in-step with what's actually on the machine.

I hope this is helpful.

--Todd

Thilo Bangert wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> in the near future i am looking at installing gentoo onto a number of
> hosts. i already have a buildhost preparing binary packages for the
> clients - one of the missing pieces is the kernel install.
>
> i'd like to avoid having to compile a kernel on each and every host. how
> do you install a prebuilt kernel onto the host, fx. after having deployed
> a stage4 using quickstart? the best thing i can come up with is writing
> my own custom script, which pulls a tarball via http. the tarball has the
> modules, the initrd and the kernel...
>
> thanks.
> kind regards
> Thilo

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