FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) for Debian GNU/Linux

FAI is a non interactive system to install a Debian GNU/Linux operating system on a PC cluster. You can take one or more virgin PCs, turn on the power and after a few minutes Linux is installed, configured and running on the whole cluster, without any interaction necessary. Thus it's a scalable method for installing and updating a Beowulf cluster or a network of workstations unattended with little effort involved. FAI uses the Debian distribution and a collection of shell- and Perl-scripts for the installation process. Changes to the configuration files of the operating system are made by cfengine, shell and Perl scripts. Using FAI, an unattended and fully automated installation of a Linux cluster which consists of 16 dual Pentium PC's and a Beowulf cluster with 20 AMD 1 GHz nodes was performed.

FAI's target group are system administrators how have to install Debian onto one or even hundreds of computers. Because it's a general purpose installation tool, it can be used for installing a Beowulf cluster, a rendering farm, a web server farm or a linux laboratory or a classroom. Also large-scale linux networks with different hardware and different installation requirements are easy to establish using FAI. FAI is an automatic installation tool for Debian GNU/Linux, similar but better than tools for other linux distributions, like kickstart for Red Hat or yast and alice for SuSE or lui from IBM.

FAI is free software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.

NEWS: fai_2.2.3 is released. It's tested with Debian 2.2r3 (potato) and also with woody.

• Download latest release of FAI for Debian 2.2: Read the NEWS for user visible new features. You can also download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/fai/

• Documentation:
  • FAI Guide version 1.3 ASCII, PDF, PostScript, HTML
  • Log files of successfull installed computers, as one small tar file

• Mailing list:
  • Subscribe by sending a mail to majordomo@uni-koeln.de and put the command subscribe linux-fai in the body of the mail.
  • Contributions should be sent to linux-fai@uni-koeln.de. Mails may be written in english or german. Only members of the mailing list may post articles.
  • Get help with a mail to majordomo@uni-koeln.de including the command help.
  • Archive available at http://www.uni-koeln.de/bin2/maillist/linux-fai.
  • All mails in one file (daily update).

• Two script for making a local partial Debian mirror
  • mkdebmirror (main script which uses debmirror)
  • debmirror (original URL) or my local copy.

• The new command fcopy can make configuration much easier. Read the manual.

• Debian CVS repositories are available:
  • CVS repository for fai
  • CVS repository for fai-kernels

• Links to usefull information for tools and programs used by FAI.
• Call for experiences and installation reports: CFP
• Other documents and installations of FAI.

• Talks by Thomas Lange:
  • The fully automatic installation of a Linux cluster; september 8, 1999; 6th International Linux Kongress , Augsburg, Germany; Slides of the talk
  • Die voll automatische Installation eines Linux Clusters; october 20, 1999; Institut für Computergraphik, TU Wien, Österreich
  • Die voll automatische Installation eines Linux Clusters; january 11, 2000, Linux-Workshop, Uni Köln
  • Das Installationstool FAI (Fully automatic Installation); june 15, 2000, GUUG Frühjahrsfachgespräch 2000
  • FAI - ein Tool zur automatischen Installation von Linux; november 22, 2000, Kolloquium: Praxis der Datenverarbeitung
  • Das Installationstool FAI; march 2, 2001, OSIE 2001 - Offene Systeme im Einsatz, Uni Köln
  • FAI - Ein Tool zur automatischen Installation von Debian GNU/Linux; may 4.-6., 2001, 3. Braunschweiger Linuxtage, TU Braunschweig
  • FAI - a tool for the fully automatic installation of Debian GNU/Linux; july 2-5, 2001, Debian one , Bordeaux
  • FAI - Fully Automatic Installation of Debian GNU/Linux; november 29, 2001 Linux Kongress 2001

• Author: Thomas Lange. You can meet me at Linux Kongress in Enschede or at LISA 2001 in San Diego. If you need support for your cluster installation, send me an email.
• The FAI poster (postscript, papersize A4), bigger version (two pages of A4 size)
• E-mail: fai@informatik.uni-koeln.de
• Additional support for FAI needed ? Call me

• Talk by Thomas Lange: Die (voll-) automatische Installation eines Sun Clusters in der Informatik ; april 28, 1999, RRZK Köln (in german)
• You can get my configuration, if you send me an email.

Thomas Lange

E-mail: lange@informatik.uni-koeln.de

http:://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/ls_juenger/lange