RE: default profile

[Vreman, Peter]

>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: cobbler-bounces(a)lists.fedorahosted.org [mailto:cobbler-
>  bounces(a)lists.fedorahosted.org] On Behalf Of Michael DeHaan
>  Sent: woensdag 19 november 2008 17:11
>  To: cobbler mailing list
>  Subject: Re: default profile
>
>  Vreman, Peter - Acision wrote:
>  > Is it possible to add a default/no-profile profile? When this profile is
>  selected the default menu will be shown.
>  >
>  > This allows the following use cases:
>  > - Default PXE for unknown MACs will be autodiscovery
>  > - Autodiscovered systems can have this default profile (current
>  pxelinux.cfg/default) assigned
>  > - Additional safety that prevents accidently redeploy of a system. After
>  deploy the system can be assigned the default profile. You must change
>  both the netboot and the profile before a system is redeployed after a
>  reboot.
>  >
>  > Thoughts?
>  >
>  > Regards,
>  > Peter
>  >
>  >
>
>  Currently if you do the following you can assign all "unassigned"
>  systems to a default profile:
>
>  cobbler system add --name=default --profile=profile_name_goes_here
>
>  You can also do this for certain networks via CIDR notation
>
>  cobbler system add --name=192.168.0.0/24 --profile=profile_name_goes_here
>
>  If the "default" system does not exist, and there is no per-network
>  record, then the PXE menu will be shown.
>
>  Currently the netboot enabled flag is the protection against the system
>  being redeployed. If pxe_just_once is enabled in
>  /var/lib/cobbler/settings, the system will turn it's netboot enabled
>  flag off, preventing accidental reinstall.
>
>  Are you concerned with the neboot enabled flag being too easy to toggle
>  in the Web application? We could perhaps add a second checkbox like we
>  do with "are you really sure you want to delete this", though I'm not
>  sure that's the optimal solution.
>
>  I think it's a feature to know what the system has been assigned to in
>  cobbler because then you know what profile it is (most likely) running. 
Correct, I'm concernd that somebody toggle the netboot flag and forgets about it. And
later when the node crashes it reboots and gets redeployed.

The netboot flag is hidden too much at the moment. I have already a patch that shows it
also in the systems list. This is gives already a better overview.

I understand that the feature to see the running profile.

Maybe a solution is to have the ability to also override the pxe template. The pxe
generation is the only location that is affected. The one-liner-hack below does already
work for me:

diff -ur old/cobbler/pxegen.py build/cobbler/pxegen.py
--- old/cobbler/pxegen.py       2008-11-19 10:42:29.000000000 +0100
+++ build/cobbler/pxegen.py     2008-11-19 20:54:26.000000000 +0100
@@ -393,7 +393,7 @@
         # ---
         # choose a template
         if system:
-            if system.netboot_enabled:
+            if system.netboot_enabled and profile.name!='localboot':
                 template = "/etc/cobbler/pxesystem.template"
                 if arch == "s390x":
                     template = "/etc/cobbler/pxesystem_s390x.template"

And other (or extra) option is to have a profile-type. That can also be used for
filtering:
- kickstart
- rescue
- imager
- discovery
- localboot

Only for the kickstart type a distro is required. For the others a kernel image/initrd are
enough and when left empty the localboot is selected.


Regards,
Peter


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