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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Hi all, I’m an avid lurker here, been going through
old msgs looking for a solution and would love it if someone could elaborate on
this tidbit written by Robert G. Brown aka RGB, and maybe point me to useful
links or a book. I need to learn this on my own… thanks in advance.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I have a room of WinXP boxes (3D and video encoding renderfarm)
that I need to image from time to time. I am using Acronis’s imaging
tools to boot the XP machines via PXE, re-imaging the entire boot disk in the
machine. I have created my own scripts to trigger reboots on the nodes, and
simply turn the pxe server on when I need to send out a new image, or turn it
off for regular reboots into XP (basically letting pxe fail).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>My issue: I’d like to do what I think RGB is
describing below. I’d like to have 2 partitions on local drives in the
nodes, one containing winXP and one containing the imaging software. Can I boot
nodes via PXE to make the decision of which local partition to boot from? Should
I be looking towards making changes to grub via scripting instead? The reason
for me to create a new workflow is because Acronis’ PXE method can be
unreliable, I’ve been using boot cd’s lately.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Thanks.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>----snipped from an old RGB post-----<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>></span></font><font size=2
face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Let's
see if I can recall the issues. Rebooting from lin to win is easy (change
grub, reboot), rebooting automagically from win to lin used to be hard.
Now I suspect that if you use PXE (only) to boot the nodes going either way would
be pretty easy, if you can figure out how to persuade the Win boxes to reboot
themselves after (say) 6 pm when their PXE servers have altered their default
boot to lin. Getting the lin nodes to reboot at 6 am is trivial.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>>These days a really
interesting possibility is to use e.g. warewulf, which lets you boot the nodes
into lin diskless. So you can ALWAYS put the nodes back to win with a
reboot. The WinXX folks tend to have to work to install Windows systems
(except where they've worked very hard to master installing from a standard
image with network shares) and get irritated if you breathe on their systems
once they're semistable. PXE booting a diskless OS leaves their hard-won
configurations alone.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>---- end of copied body ----<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Alpay Kasal</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Admin/Engineer</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a href="http://www.NYCRenderfarm.com">http://www.NYCRenderfarm.com</a></span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span><o:p></o:p></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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