[00:16] <azend> I may be stuck with the job of setting up a lab of 18 laptops
[00:17] <azend> any advice on setting up linux for cloning?
[01:19] <BobJonkman1> azend Check out Clonezilla
[01:20] <BobJonkman1> There's a server component that does multi-cast. Boot each laptop from a USB stick (or even from PXE), when they're all ready select "go" on the server, and they all chug along at the same rate.
[01:21] <BobJonkman1> I used to update labs at The Working Centre (2 labs, 16 workstations each) with that.
[01:21] <BobJonkman1> Paul Nijjar set up the server end; you may want to ask on the KWLUG mailing list where he hangs out
[01:23] <azend> Cool
[01:24] <azend> yeah, I've used Clonezilla before but I've only ever used the one to one tools
[01:24] <azend> I guess I'm more asking if there is anything I should know in terms of hiccups when you clone ubuntu/linux to another machine
[01:25] <azend> windows isn't great at cloning either
[01:25] <BobJonkman1> The linux kernel is a remarkable beast.
[01:25] <azend> you can clone it fine but all of the security keys stay the same
[01:26] <azend> so if you crack one machine, you crack them all
[01:26] <BobJonkman1> I've pulled a hard drive out of one P4 single core machine and put it into a P5 four core with more RAM and a better video card and it just worked
[01:26] <azend> very cool
[01:27] <BobJonkman1> When I cloned WIndows we had a license that allowed duplicates (some kind of low-cost institutional license)
[01:27] <BobJonkman1> There's also a way to set up a central license server
[01:28] <BobJonkman1> The biggest problem is that after the clone you have to bang each machine to change hostname
[01:28] <BobJonkman1> Of course, you can do that with a script, maybe based on MAC address or DHCP address.
[01:28] <BobJonkman1> Also, since we had two labs, on one we had to change things like default printer definition
[01:29] <BobJonkman1> But on Linux if you're not worried about customizing each box then you only have to worry about hostname
[01:30] <azend> yeah, I'm not really worried about that
[01:30] <azend> I figure I could just make the host names "DIYODE-<last two bytes of mac address>"
[01:31] <azend> ie. DIYODE-3E4F
[01:31] <BobJonkman1> Before we had the multi-cast server I just pulled the Clonezilla images off my laptop. Took more bandwidth (and was much slower), but easy to do
[01:31] <azend> how much resources does the server take
[01:32] <azend> can you run it on a raspberry pi with a hard drive?
[01:32] <BobJonkman1> Right, so set the hostname to "unconfigured", then have a bootup script check for that and change if necessary
[01:32] <azend> or an nslu2?
[01:32] <BobJonkman1> rpi will probably work.
[01:33] <BobJonkman1> The multi-cast doesn't take nearly as much bandwidth. But images can be big, so you need storage. But you can probably keep an image on a 16 GB sdcard, so a rpi should be oK
[01:34]  * BobJonkman1 doesn't know what an nslu is
[01:35] <BobJonkman1> Gotta go. I'm changing the faucet on the kitchen sink. I hate plumbing, and it's already taken all afternoon.
[01:35] <azend> It's an old linksys network appliance
[01:35] <azend> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2
[01:35] <azend> It is a device that you plug hard drives into and it becomes your nas
[01:35] <azend> but it became famous because you could reflash the firmware with debian
[01:36] <azend> and could run whatever you wanted
[01:36] <BobJonkman1> You can boot each laptop with Clonezilla and just pull the image from any network accessible storage. So that nslu should work
[01:36] <azend> we used one at hillside a few years ago to act as a wifi portal and web chat server
[01:36] <azend> very cool
[01:37] <BobJonkman1> And if it runs Debian then you can run the clonezilla server (which isn't called "clonezilla server")
[01:37]  * BobJonkman1 goes to look for the web site
[01:39] <BobJonkman1> http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-SE/
[01:39] <BobJonkman1> The server was DRBL
[01:39] <azend> I'm there thanks
[01:39] <BobJonkman1> But Paul Nijjar set it up.
[01:39] <azend> dribble is a terrible name :P
[01:39] <BobJonkman1> I seem to recall he had some issues before it worked
[01:40] <BobJonkman1> I pronounce it dur-bull
[01:40] <azend> that makes more sense
[01:40] <BobJonkman1> (because dribble is a terrible name)
[01:40] <azend> It sounds like a dog salivating on all of your machines
[01:40] <BobJonkman1> Anyway, I'm off to do some recreational plumbing
[01:41] <azend> I love recreational plumbing! :_
[01:41] <azend> :)
[01:41] <azend> It's like plumbing but with water everywhere
[01:42] <azend> not to say regular plumbing isn't the same
[01:43] <azend> but with recreational plumbing it's intentional!
[01:43] <BobJonkman1> As soon as I twisted the knob on the shutoff valve it started to spray water.
[01:43] <BobJonkman1> And things got worse from there
[01:43]  * BobJonkman1 is procrastinating
[01:44]  * BobJonkman1 hates plumbing
[01:44] <BobJonkman1> The only up side to having to do this plumbing is that I don't have to do the dishes.
[01:44] <BobJonkman1> But as soon as the plumbing is done then the dishes can be done too.
[01:44] <BobJonkman1> So the more I put it off...