[xcat-user] How can I deploy an OS on a VM skipping the installation steps?

[Nora D]

If I have a virtual machine, how can I install on it an operating system skipping the installation steps?

In other words, when I choose an operating system to be installed on the VM, I want to use it immediately without bothering with the installation steps (like choosing the language, username, etc)

Also how can it be a headless VM? Meaning that I don't need the OS with a graphical user interface. I only want to use it via the terminal.

Is there anyway that I can do that?

Note: I am using KVM and libvirt.

Please help ASAP.

Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone

[Mark Gurevich]

Nora,

Installing such "headless" VM is one of the things that xCAT helps you to
do.

Step 1 is to prepare the OS for xCAT to install, you can follow
instructions here:
http://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/guides/admin-guides/manage_clusters/ppc64le/diskful/copy_image.html

Step 2 is to create and install the VM with that OS image:
http://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/guides/admin-guides/manage_clusters/ppc64le/virtual_machines/manage_vms.html

Mark Gurevich
Poughkeepsie Development Lab
HPC Software Development - xCAT

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research,
would it?"
--Albert Einstein





From: Nora D <***@live.com>
To: "xcat-***@lists.sourceforge.net"
<xcat-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Date: 03/14/2017 11:08 AM
Subject: [xcat-user] How can I deploy an OS on a VM skipping the
installation steps?



If I have a virtual machine, how can I install on it an operating system
skipping the installation steps?
In other words, when I choose an operating system to be installed on the
VM, I want to use it immediately without bothering with the installation
steps (like choosing the language, username, etc)
Also how can it be a headless VM? Meaning that I don't need the OS with a
graphical user interface. I only want to use it via the terminal.
Is there anyway that I can do that?
Note: I am using KVM and libvirt.
Please help ASAP.
Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone

[Nora D]

How can I create my own iso file with my own configured packages and configurations? So I can deploy my configured iso image in my slave nodes?

On Mar 14, 2017, at 7:16 PM, Mark Gurevich <***@us.ibm.com<mailto:***@us.ibm.com>> wrote:

Nora,

Installing such "headless" VM is one of the things that xCAT helps you to do.

Step 1 is to prepare the OS for xCAT to install, you can follow instructions here: http://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/guides/admin-guides/manage_clusters/ppc64le/diskful/copy_image.html

Step 2 is to create and install the VM with that OS image:
http://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/guides/admin-guides/manage_clusters/ppc64le/virtual_machines/manage_vms.html

Mark Gurevich
Poughkeepsie Development Lab
HPC Software Development - xCAT

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
--Albert Einstein





From: Nora D <***@live.com<mailto:***@live.com>>
To: "xcat-***@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:xcat-***@lists.sourceforge.net>" <xcat-***@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:xcat-***@lists.sourceforge.net>>
Date: 03/14/2017 11:08 AM
Subject: [xcat-user] How can I deploy an OS on a VM skipping the installation steps?
________________________________



If I have a virtual machine, how can I install on it an operating system skipping the installation steps?
In other words, when I choose an operating system to be installed on the VM, I want to use it immediately without bothering with the installation steps (like choosing the language, username, etc)
Also how can it be a headless VM? Meaning that I don't need the OS with a graphical user interface. I only want to use it via the terminal.
Is there anyway that I can do that?
Note: I am using KVM and libvirt.
Please help ASAP.
Thanks.


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[Christopher Samuel]

On 15/03/17 03:18, Nora D wrote:

> How can I create my own iso file with my own configured packages and
> configurations? So I can deploy my configured iso image in my slave nodes?

I've never used it, but the xCAT documentation says it supports using
SystemImager to deploy prepared images to nodes.

https://sourceforge.net/p/xcat/wiki/Image_Provisioning/

We use xCAT's "statelite" support to boot a pre-prepared RAMdisk image
onto our diskless compute nodes.

All the best,
Chris
--
Christopher Samuel Senior Systems Administrator
Melbourne Bioinformatics - The University of Melbourne
Email: ***@unimelb.edu.au Phone: [phone]

[Christopher Samuel]

On 15/03/17 14:16, Christopher Samuel wrote:

> I've never used it, but the xCAT documentation says it supports using
> SystemImager to deploy prepared images to nodes.

Wrong (old) documentation link sorry! The current doc site is:

http://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io/en/2.13.2/advanced/sysclone/sysclone.html

All the best,
Chris
--
Christopher Samuel Senior Systems Administrator
Melbourne Bioinformatics - The University of Melbourne
Email: ***@unimelb.edu.au Phone: [phone]