Provisionning needed for bulk deployment
The provisionning of the OS is an important missing feature.
It should encompass the following features:
- Ability to provision a small number of clients using a bare setup (no packages/configuration required).
- Ability to provision a large number of clients using a specific configuration (PXE advised).
- Ability to parallel the provisionning.
So far, the following options have been considered:
- To use `cat provision_script | nc -q0 -lp 4810` on a machine, and `tmpfile=$(mktemp); nc $ip 4810 >$tmpfile && chmod a+x $tmpfile && $tmpfile; rm $tmpfile` on the client (possibly as a script distributed with alpine). Problem: does not support parallelisation (invalidating point 3). Usage with PXE is possible but complicated, since the command requires the provisionning machine’s IP address (complicating point 2).
- To use an httpd instead of nc. It has the advantage of allowing parallelisation (solving point 2 and 3), but does not solve the complexity required with PXE. It also brings in a new problem: httpd isn’t a standard utility available on the shell, and it therefore can require a package/configuration (invalidating point 1).
- To use PXE. That solves the points 2 and 3, but also invalidates point 1, since it requires a non-trivial setup.
An ideal solution would provide all required abilities.
(from redmine: issue id 3372, created on 2014-09-18)