Cobbler is an open source tool for provisioning and managing Linux systems. It allows users to fully automate Linux installs, reinstalls, and virtualization. Cobbler imports installation trees, configures PXE, and tracks kickstart requests to provide a unified environment for provisioning. It aims to be simple, feature-rich, and open source.

1. Provisioning With Cobbler Michael DeHaan 2007

2. Common Provisioning Goals Fully Automated Installs PXE Reinstalls (w/o PXE) Virtualization

3. Existing Solutions Are (Usually) ... Non-comprehensive Bought ($$$) or Custom-Built ($$$) Limited In Scope

4. Cobbler Is... Simple / Unified Open / Sharable Feature-Rich

5. Cobbler In Action....

6. Importing A DVD cobbler check (and edit /var/lib/cobbler/settings) cobbler import --mirror=/media/dvd --name=FC-7

7. Behind The Scenes Input /usr/bin/cobbler -> /var/lib/cobbler/* Output /tftpboot/* /var/www/cobbler/* /etc/dhcp.conf

8. Configuration Concepts

9. Configuration Concepts

10. Configuration Concepts

11. Configuration Concepts

12. Manual Configurations cobbler distro add cobbler profile add cobbler system add

13. Viewing The Configuration cobbler list cobbler report

14. PXE Setup manage_dhcp = 1 in /var/lib/cobbler/settings & “cobbler sync” ... (or just set your next-server entry)

15. PXE Menus Type “menu” Pick a profile Default = local boot

16. Introducing koan koan --list-profiles --server=bootserv.example.com

17. koan & reinstallation koan --profile=FC6-x86_64-webserver --replace-self --server=bootserv.example.com

18. koan & virtualization koan --virt --profile=virtual-testbed --server=bootserv.example.com

19. Advanced Features ...

20. Kernel Options /var/lib/cobbler/settings --kopts

21. Kickstart Templating examples in /etc/cobbler cobbler system add --ksmeta=”foo=2 bar=8” “$foo $bar” http://cheetahtemplate.org/learn.html

22. PXE Templating /etc/cobbler ... dhcp.template pxedefault.template pxeprofile.template pxesystem.template

23. Repository Mirroring cobbler repo add --name=fc6i386updates --mirror=http://... cobbler profile add ... --repos=”fc6i386updates fc6i386extras”

24. Kickstart Tracking /var/log/cobbler ... File Requests Syslog “cobbler status”

25. Remote Control cobbler enchant --address=192.168.1.100 --profile=FC-7-foo --virt=yes

26. Summary Unified Provisioning Environment Easy to Use Feature Rich Free / Open / Sharable

27. Useful Links http://cobbler.et.redhat.com git clone git://et.redhat.com/cobbler git clone git://et.redhat.com/koan [email_address] [email_address]

28. Q&A