Deployment Framework Best Practices for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on HP ProLiant

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Figure 5: Deployment framework solution – provisioning
The Cobbler toolset provides a way to collect installation media into network repositories, offering
standardized ways to present these to target systems. Many different Linux distributions are
supported.
BEST PRACTICES:
• Relying upon both DHCP and PXE from the network infrastructure services, this toolset allows
systems to easily perform a network boot and installation process. In this way, you acn easily
automate the startup logistics of installations.
• Using Cobbler also implies the notion of the repository functionality. Plan what kind of storage
paradigm to use, whether direct or network attached, and if the repository can be scaled, both
in terms of storage growth over time plus the ability to replicate this to other geographical sites
as needed. Before the system installation process itself can become completely unattended, the
profile functionality must be present. Utilizing kickstart as an answer file technology, all of
the typical interactive install questions and choices can be pre-answered.
Many different kickstart profiles may be established, to match the desired services being
deployed. With the coupling of Cobbler and kickstart, you can manage them in a mix and
match layered offering or simply as templates to reuse. In any case, the key issue is to
completely describe the installation to remove user interaction for the sake of consistent,
repeatable installations.