Lead Image © Nataliya Hora, 123RF.com

Build operating system images on demand

Assembly Line

Article from ADMIN 55/2020

By Martin Loschwitz

If you are looking for a way to build images quickly and easily, FAI.me is the place to go.

In popular clouds, the providers usually roll out standard distribution images. SUSE, Red Hat, and Canonical offer these explicitly, and there is no reason why you should not use them. However, these images may have one or two annoying features, such as missing packages, wrong configurations, or other everyday difficulties.

Changing a finished image is not trivial. Instead, many admins start rebuilding from the source and, sooner or later, give up. In most cases it is not possible to achieve the same image quality as that of the distributors. Either the DIY images are bulky and far too big or they don't work well.

This problem is exactly what FAI.me addresses: The tool is an extension of the Fully Automated Installer (FAI; see also the "FAI Review" box) [1] that builds operating system (OS) images on demand, for both bare metal and use in the cloud. In this article, I introduce FAI.me and explain what happens in the background.

FAI Review

A short review of FAI will help you understand FAI.me. Although FAI is not new, the author Thomas Lange is continuously adding new features. Moreover, a small but hard-working community has gathered around the tool, keeping it up to date and ensuring that it can install Ubuntu and CentOS in addition to Debian.

The original purpose of FAI was clearly defined: After unpacking, new servers install autonomously to the extent possible and without too much manual intervention. Quite remarkably, FAI was created back in the late 1990s, long before automation tools such as Puppet or Ansible existed.

FAI offered the ability to roll out an OS automatically at an early stage. In the standard configuration, it combines a number of different protocols. A DHCP server is supported by a TFTP server. Clients use the PXE protocol to obtain an IP and then load a

...

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).