[wplug] Wplug PXE server

[Rob Lines]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 1:55 PM, Terence J. Golightly
<terencejgolightly at gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings List,
>
> A project has been eating at me has come to partial fruition:
>
> An InstallFest PXE server.
<snip>

So a couple comments.  It would probably be best to have it as self
contained as you can make it.  Put dhcp right on the server as it will
make the PXE part easier and it is one less part to break.  Add a
gigabit switch to the rig to connect clients to it on a private
network.  That lets you ensure a nice fast connection for the
installs.

As someone else said you could dual home it and have the "wan" facing
side set to autoconfigure off dhcp.  This gives you the option of
sharing the internet connection to the installing clients if it is
available but the kit doesn't need an internet connection.

If you can round up some extra drives (does it have a spare sata port
because I would be willing to donate a decent size drive to the
project)  You can skip localy mirroring all the updates but instead
install a caching proxy server.  That way when you have a handful of
machines all update with 2 gb of new packages you only have to
download it once.  And you could easily do that ahead of time on
someone's FIOS connection instead of flooding a libray's connection.
It also lets the client machines keep the normal real update
configurations pointing to the internet instead of having to mangle
them to point to the installfest machine and then clean them after the
fact before they head home.