Ghostly cloning, or we put Ghost into a routine.

Introduction

Many of us had to face routine tasks when servicing a large fleet of computers. Installing the OS and the minimum set of applications is one of them. And of course there are a lot of solutions, up to installing everything manually or creating “assemblies” of an unattended installation with applications and drivers included in them. Probably you already understood that we will not discuss anything like this today. Today I would like to tell you about what I came up with as a result of long-term experiments against routine tasks. And this article is devoted to the deployment of the OS with all the software through the network, through hard disk images. This article is an overview, and there will be no step-by-step instructions. There will be a demand - will appear.

Setting goals

So, to begin with we will designate our tasks. We need

• Installing a standard OS and a set of applications on a new machine with an empty hard drive.
• Software support up to date throughout the fleet

And all this is desirable with the least amount of body movements and time-consuming.

Facilities

To bring this to life in a given direction, we will need:

• Software package Symantec Ghost 11 or less.
• DHCP and TFTP server
• LAN - the better the better. It is understood that in 90% of cases it is better to equal and faster.
• Patients. They are the very same computers over which the execution will be made.

Here it seems to me I will need some explanations.
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Symantec Ghost 11

Yes exactly. "Or younger." The fact is that Symantec Ghost versions younger than 11 are engaged in more valuable things than subsequent ones. The current versions are engaged in “backup” of “important data”. The old versions were engaged in the creation of images of hard drives, with all their structure. Moreover, in the case of Windows file systems, it was the FS file that was copied, which made it possible to transfer the axis completely to any hard drives that contained the required amount of data. With * nix FS, everything is somewhat worse - they were copied sectorally, which caused certain problems. However, * nix systems, today we will touch only in passing.

DHCP and TFTP

A DHCP server is desirable, so if you have one, it’s good. If not - not scary, there are several ways to solve it. We need it for our direct role - to distribute IP addresses and additional parameters, in our case, the address of the TFTP server.
We need the TFTP server to boot from the network a floppy disk image with drivers for the network card and Ghost itself.

LAN

We need a network. The whole point is the simultaneous transfer of hard disk images over a network to a large number of computers. And as mentioned earlier, the better the better. And it concerns both wires / sockets, and network equipment. However, two parameters directly depend on the quality of the LAN: the speed of image filling and the probability of network overload. The fact is that our final goal is to use multicast, and if the switches do not know how to work adequately with it, while the GhostCast is running, the speed of the network may decrease, up to the smearing of ARP tables on the switches.

Patients

The main requirement for patients is the ability to download from the network. In the park I trusted now 95% can work with PXE, thanks to which my life is much simpler than it could be. But the problem with the inability to boot on PXE is completely solvable, there would be a desire.

Training

I will touch this stage very casually today. At this stage we must do:

• Configure or tune DHCP
• Configure TFTP
• Create an image of a Ghost boot floppy with network drivers

Since these positions, for good, require a separate article each, today we confine ourselves to their enumeration.

Cloning

Now we describe the situation. We have a zero point, i.e. all cars with empty screws. Suppose we have two iron configurations. On one of the machines we manually install the OS, all the necessary software and drivers for the configuration. And then we go into the device manager and systematically delete all devices except standard ones. Turn off.

And this is where Ghost starts to help us. We have already prepared a floppy disk image with a guest, DHCP and TFTP are running, the IGMP filtering function is enabled on the switches. We load the machine over the network, make a copy of the system partition (C :) on the server, simultaneously compressing it. Depending on the speed of the LAN, it will take a different time (For sixteen gigabytes = 10 Mbit \ s ~ 3-4 hours, 100 Mbit \ s ~ 0.5-1.5 hours, 1000 Mbit \ s ~ 15-30 minutes). They drank coffee, smoked (yes, I have almost gigabit everywhere). And it would seem that happiness, you can pour half of the cars in this way.

, . , , .. . ( 4-5 ), , . .

But no, we fill this image on the machine with the second configuration. And again, a coffee break and a cigarette. Ghost has done its job, time for the GhostWalker. Volker allows you to replace SID systems in Win systems and rename the computer before it starts up (to be honest, I haven’t bothered with the problem of matching SIDs on different computers, but big smart guys say there are problems and SIDs need to be changed. Well, I believe them. ). They waited for the second machine to be flooded and deliver all the necessary drivers to it. Again, remove all non-standard devices. And ... well, you understand, set to shoot the image. And again kofeechek and cigarette. We waited, now we have an image which, when uploading to any (of our two) configurations, will determine the driver itself, and there all the necessary software is already installed.

Well, now for what we have done all this. You can turn on the multicast distribution of this image on the GhostCast server, check again whether IGMP filtering is enabled, load all the machines from the network, and watch how Ghost first works, and then GhostWaker.

Loading. Voila Ntsta computers are deployed in 3 hours. (0.5 for the initial installation + 0.5 for the first removal + 0.5 for filling, + 0.5 for the second removal + 0.5 for filling all + 0.5 prozapas)

As for the second goal, if all of a sudden there appears something bulky and unpleasant on ALL machines (VS2008, for example), then you can perezalit one machine in a clean way, put what is necessary on it, remove the excess, remove the image and roll it on all other cars. As a result, all machines have the same thing: a clean axis and the necessary software. It is possible to deliver software and a bay image to a virtual machine. Everything else is worth adding that if there is a need to just add some files to the image, then they can be added to GhostExploer, as well as pulled out.

That's all. Next week, wait for the second and third parts of the article "PXE, TFTP software selection." And "The most useful ghost in the network"