1.4. Glossary of Terms

si_addclients

a command that tells your image server which image to install on the autoinstall clients by creating soft links to the master autoinstall script with the name of each host that will receive that image. si_addclients also allows you to populate the etc/hosts file with sequential host names and IP addresses. The information in this file is necessary for some SystemImager operations.

autoinstall media

media that is used to boot an autoinstall client to begin the autoinstall process. Autoinstall media can be a floppy, a CDROM, the network, or the local hard drive of the autoinstall client.

autoinstall script

One or more scripts associated with an image, each unique to a specific hardware/partitioning/filesystem/network configuration. The si_getimage command creates an initial autoinstallscript, which can be regenerated later, possibly with different options, using the si_mkautoinstallscript command. The autoinstall script (also called the ".master script") is downloaded and executed by the autoinstall client, and performs most of the autoinstall process. Names of autoinstall scripts begin with the image name and end in .master. For example: my_webserver_image_v1.master

daemon

a program that lies in wait for something to trigger it to action, for example, a web server daemon waiting for a Web page request to begin its retrieval function.

si_getimage

a command run from the image server to pull a system image from a golden client.

golden client

a manually-installed, customized machine from which an image is taken for deployment to client systems.

image server

the machine that holds and distributes the system images.

local.cfg

a configuration file that can be used for autoinstall clients in lieu of DHCP, DNS, and/or the /var/lib/systemimager/scripts/hosts file on the image server.

si_mkdhcpserver

a command that creates a SystemImager -appropriate /etc/dhcpd.conf file. DHCP can be used to assign IP addresses to autoinstall clients.

si_mkdhcpstatic

a command to modify the /etc/dhcpd.conf file, adding static entries for autoinstall clients based on the IP addresses handed out to these clients by the DHCP server.

si_mkbootserver

A utility for configuring a network boot server. Currently just supports configuring PXE boot servers for i386 clients.

si_prepareclient

a command you must run on the golden client immediately prior to running si_getimage on the image server. si_prepareclient prepares the golden client to have its image retrieved and creates an etc/systemimager directory with information about the golden client, such as the disk partitioning scheme(s).

si_updateclient

a command that updates or synchronizes client systems to a new or updated image after the initial autoinstall, enabling software and content distribution.