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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>FAI - Fully Automatic Installation</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/main.css" media="screen" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/print.css" media="print" />
<!--[if lte IE 6]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/ie6_or_less.css" />
<![endif]-->
<script type="text/javascript" src="/css/common.js"></script>
<style type="text/css">
hr {margin: 1em 0;background:#777777;height:2px;color:#777777;border:none;clear:both}
</style>
</head>
<body id="type-b">
<div id="wrap">
<div id="header">
<div id="site-name">
<a href="/fai">FAI - Fully Automatic Installation</a>
</div>
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</div>
<!--#include virtual="/menu.html" -->
<div id="content">
<!-- removed breadcrumb -->
<h1>User reports</h1>
Currently we have more than 270 detailed reports. Please also fill out the <a href="/questionnaire">FAI questionnaire</a>.
<p>
<hr/>
<b>From:</b> Liane Siebert, arch dot siebert ===vienna onedotagain at
<br><b>Date:</b> Mon, 2 Jan 2012 14:47:47 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>20</b> ASAP
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.2.17</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, mailserver
How do you boot your hosts? PXE
via network (PXE, DHCP): fixed addr., DHCP for guests only
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? still under construction
How many files do you have in ../config/files? still under construction
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> architecture office, Architekturbüro Siebert
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
Final aim:
Machines normally can boot and work without FAI, because no FAT-server is online
otherwise all machines are building a cluster with diskless terminals for graphical
work, next VM qemu is planned
</pre> <HR>
<a id=chipxonio></a>
<b>From:</b> Steffen Knauf, SKnauf X chip=DE
<br><b>Date:</b> Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:06:20 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Round about <b>400 hosts</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.7</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Customized 3.X Kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All type of servers, e.g. webserver, databaseserver....
How do you boot your hosts?: PXE/DHCP
Do you manage your configuration space under version control?: Yes, using Subversion
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2,9MB / 459 Files
How many files do you have in ../config/files?: 232
What types of scripts are you using for local customization?: Shell,Perl,cfengine. We plan to use puppet in the future.
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Media, <a href="http://www.chip.de">CHIP Xonio Online GmbH</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b> We use different FAI_ETC_DIR directories and nfsroots for Lenny and Squeeze, but the same config space.
Thanks for your great work!
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Philipp Gasteiger, Xgasteiger Xmunichx Xde
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:37:05 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>~10</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.7</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, Notebooks, Web Server, Mail Server
How do you boot your hosts? Network
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes!
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes with Git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 10 MB, #75
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 36
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Online Services, <a href="http://www.munichx.de/">munichx e.K.</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b> Thanks for the good Software, our team likes it a
lot and it makes installations much easier!
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Michael Fladerer
<br><b>Date:</b> Fri, 7 Oct 2011 18:12:27 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>~50</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.2.17~lenny1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, notebooks, web server, mail server, NFS server
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? All necessary for installation.
Which drivers are missing? None.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2.7MB, 214 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 83
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Education, R & D, <a href="http://www.fnb.tu-darmstadt.de/">Institue of Numerical Methods in Mechanical Engineering</a>
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Antonio RUSSO, antonio-externe.russo -edf- Xfr
<br><b>Date:</b> Tue, 2 Aug 2011 12:06:16 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b></b>
We have installed 7 clusters using FAI :
- Vil1 : 36 hosts
- Vil3 : 20 hosts
- Tre1 : 132 hosts
- Tre2 : 130 hosts
- Clamart2 : 275 hosts
- Ivanoé (calcul nodes diskless) : 12 hosts
- Aster4: 54 hosts
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.7</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Custom build kernel 2.6.32
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
- cluster nodes
- NFS servers
- Puppet Master servers
- Torque/Maui servers
- SLURM servers
- Web, NTP and mail servers
How do you boot your hosts?
The first server is installed using a USB disk, the others are
installed via network (DHCP + GPXE)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, using Subversion.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell + Puppet after the installation
== For the Aster4 cluster (this is the most complex configuration)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 29MB, #633
How many files do you have in ../config/files? #439
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Energy, <a href="http://www.edf.com/">EDF S.A. - Électricité de France</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We use FAI for the installation and for backup/restore system images using a hook.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Solomon Matthews, Solomon dotMatthews att=riotintoDOT.com
<br><b>Date:</b> Mon, 1 Aug 2011 12:54:53 +1000
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>~20</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.8</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, web server (intranet), assorted servers to support software development, build machines.
How do you boot your hosts? Network.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? All necessary for the installation
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, with Git.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 9.0M, #50
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 20
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? CFengine, Python
CFengine (installed as part of FAI builds)
Python (custom CFengine modules and config scripts used in FAI installations)
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Mining, <a href="http://www.riotinto.com/">Rio Tinto</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
Thanks for the quick reply, and for your excellent software.
My team develops software for surface mining automation, we currently
use FAI to build hosts to support software development and trial
deployments.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Thomas Leitner
<br><b>Date:</b> Mon, 30 May 2011 16:47:40 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Around <b>Around 250</b> host.
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3.5ubuntu3</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? custom build kernel 2.6
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops and cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Everything works fine.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control?
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
Don't know since the FAI server is actually maintained by someone
else. We are using a custom built frontend that uses FAI for
installing Linux on the backend side.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell and perl scripts for
FAI initiated customization. But most configuration is done after the installation via puppet.
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Education, <a href="http://mat.univie.ac.at">Faculty of Mathematics, University of Vienna</a>
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Alexander Swen
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 25 May 2011 17:14:00 +0200 (CEST)
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>currently: 4</b>, counting, will grow fast.
in experimental phase at the moment.
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.7</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian 2.6.32-5-amd64
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? application and db servers
How do you boot your hosts? network pxe/dhcp
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no, had to install firmware-bnx2
Which drivers are missing? firmware-bnx2
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, github
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 400k, #58
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? puppet
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> <a href="http://nedap-healthcare.com/">Nedap Healthcare</a>
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> anonymous
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 25 May 2011 17:56:16 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>200+</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.2ubuntu1~lucid1~ppa1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Ubuntu kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All types of servers
How do you boot your hosts? PXE/DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? < 1MB
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 47
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> System design/integration in the HPC world
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
FAI is a great piece of software. I really like it's flexibility.
Thanks a lot for your work.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Syd Alsobrook, syd | ittagteam dod= com
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 4 May 2011 11:44:18 -0400
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>20+</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.7</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian 2.6.32-5-686
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Physical and virtual server
How do you boot your hosts? PXE and FAI-CD
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? None yet
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 312K, 38 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 7
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell and cfengine
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> <a href="http://www.ittagteam.com">IT Tag Team, Inc.</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
Deploying internal and client systems.
</pre> <HR>
<a id=stayfriends></a>
<b>From:</b> Steffen Eichler, StayFriends, Germany
<br><b>Date:</b> Mon, 2 May 2011 13:54:54 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>several hundred</b> (and counting)
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.7</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? database servers, application servers, Xen hosts (Dom0)
How do you boot your hosts? via network: PXE, DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? mostly, yes
Which drivers are missing? sometimes problems with broadcom network cards
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes (subversion)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
-> etch 6,3MB, #64
-> lenny 1,4MB, #59
-> squeeze 388KB, #14
How many files do you have in ../config/files?
find files ! -type d | grep -v svn|grep -v cvs|wc -l
-> etch = 13
-> lenny = 13
-> squeeze = 14
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> social network platform, <a href="http://www.stayfriends.de/">StayFriends GmbH</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We are running a very basic setup to perform the basic partitioning
and minimal OS installation; the rest is managed by puppet.
Additional sites we host:
http://www.trombi.com/
http://www.stayfriends.se/
http://www.stayfriends.at/
http://www.stayfriends.ch/
http://www.abschlusszeit.de/
http://www.stayfriends.com/
</pre> <HR>
<a id=lvm></a>
<b>From:</b> Hans-Gerd van Schelve, LVM Versicherung, Germany
<br><b>Date:</b> Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:01:16 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>about 10.000</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3.4lvm21</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Linux 2.6.32-24-generic-pae i686
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops and notebooks
How do you boot your hosts? DHCP / PXE
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, bazaar
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 788K, 93 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 25
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? we have added some shell based scripts
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> <a href="http://www.lvm.de">LVM Versicherung</a> is a german insurance company.
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We are using FAI for installation of our Ubuntu based desktop systems. We did
some modifications to implement our own software deployment solution. This
way we are able to install each system with the software that the user needs.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> anonymous
<br><b>Date:</b> Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:47:09 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>~32000 </b> in batches of ~30 to ~700 with each go
Which version of fai are you using? most current one i.e. <b>3.4.7</b> as of April 2011
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel and custom ones depending on
use case; ~70% plain Debian/CentOS/Fedora though
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? dedicated servers and shared hosting platform
e.g. NAS drives and cluster nodes using Supermicro/Dell/IBM gear; sometimes office setups
How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP and custom infrastructure management using IBM software written for us
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? most of the time all works
(Dell and Supermicro hardware); if not we customize until it does
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? from ~ 160 MiB to ~3.2 GiB depending on use case
How many files do you have in ../config/files? from ~230 to ~650 depending on use case
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? custom python framework
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> hosting provider, financial industry
quantitative analysis and data modellling
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Frank Doelitzscher, doelitz :ad: hs - furtwangen .de
<br><b>Date:</b> Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:04:08 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>100+</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel 2.6.x
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cloud VMs, Debian based, minimal and desktop systems
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Yes and No. We needed a special bios version for the virtual network
card kvm is using.
Which drivers are missing? Bios file for network card model type = "rtl8139"
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, svn.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, expect
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Research institute at <a href="http://www.wolke.hs-furtwangen.de">Hochschule Furtwangen University</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We used FAI to provide students with preconfigured virtual machines
(VMs). FAI enabled us to deliver this without maintaining a lot of
different VM images, based on the software installed.
<a href="pictures/FAI_Install.jpeg">Poster</a> of our architecture.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Dirk Sandbrink, Uni Münster
<br><b>Date:</b> Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:42:44 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>about 60</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.7</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, using bzr
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 4.4M, 594 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 372
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? mostly shell, some cfengine
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> <a href="http://pauli.uni-muenster.de"> Institute for Theoretical Physics</a>, WWU Münster
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Frederik Wagner = Frederik .Wagner @physik dot uni minus muenchen. de
<br><b>Date:</b> Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:31:49 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>ca. 400</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.2</b> (ubuntu lucid)
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Ubuntu karmic/lucid kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, server base installations
How do you boot your hosts? PXE/DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes so far
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? currently not
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? ~20MB in 4600 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? ~4400
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell (very few cfengine)
What is the business of your company/organization? <a href="http://www.physik.uni-muenchen.de/">Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Univesitaet Munich</a>
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We are deploying all our Ubuntu workstations completely with FAI.
Servers only receive their base installation through FAI. We are
migrating to a reduced/minimal FAI installation for all systems. The
main configuration work is going to be processed by Puppet.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Mark Eisenblaetter, mark doot eisenblaetter gm ail dooot c o m
<br><b>Date:</b> Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:59:34 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>About 50 </b> so far, mosly virtual machines
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.2.17~lenny1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian Lenny 64bit
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? HP servers and VMs, but mostly VMs (using VMware)
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Streaming, encoding mainly for broadcasting stations
special audio/video project, media center, live recording systems,...
<a href="http://www.gl-systemhaus.de/ ">G&L Geißendörfer & Leschinsky GmbH</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
Mostly for installing the base system, when implementing FAI
(Installation and Configuration Management) i was fixed on supporting most *inx- Systems.
So I use FAI for installation and CFengine for configuration.
I will try to move from Debian tu Ubuntu in the future, but there is
no timetable yet.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Kai Wilke, kiste===netzworkk===de
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:21:24 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>ca. 25</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.2.17~lenny1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel 2.6.26-1
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktop Clients, DVD for MainServer
How do you boot your hosts? DHCP, server installation using FAI-DVD
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes.
Which drivers are missing? None.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No, not yet.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 644 KByte, #140
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 63
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine and scripts (Zshell).
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Education, <a href="http://www.sbb-hamburg.de">SBB in Hamburg</a>
</pre> <HR>
<b>From: anonymous</b>
<br><b>Date:</b> Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:31:44 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Round about, <b> >= 350 hosts</b> and it's increasing
Which version of fai are you using? <b> 3.4.3ubuntu1~lucid1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? vmlinuz-2.6.32-25-server
(from Ubuntu Lucid with changes to live-initramfs)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? webserver, mailserver, tomcat application servers etc.
everything which has linux on it.
How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, Bazaar-NG (aka bzr)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 200K, 50 Files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 2
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, python, puppet
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> desktop collaboration
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
Nice <a href="/reports/pictures/anon1/index.html">pictures</a>.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Frederik Konietzny, f r k o = fr.ed.eri.k.k.on.iet.z.ny = de
<br><b>Date:</b> Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:33:30 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>300</b> (200 at company A, 100 at company B)
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3.5</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.32-bpo.5-amd64
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, web and mail server
How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (mercurial)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 493K, #123
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 0
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine, <a href="http://www.opscode.com/chef">chef</a>
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Web analytics and tracking
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> andrew bezella, abezella a r c h i v e org
<br><b>Date:</b> Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:51:16 -0800
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>200 and rising</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3.5ubuntu3</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain ubuntu kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, miscellaneous infrastructure servers
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 616K, 97 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 17 files
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell and cfengine
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> non-profit, digital library, <a href="http://www.archive.org">Internet Archive</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
FAI is used to partition and format the disks and lay down a base install. As the final
step in fai's install process, cfengine is called to configure the operating system.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Jan Westendorf
<br><b>Date:</b> Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:24:00 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>273 hosts</b> (100 Debian)
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.2</b> for Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Ubuntu 10.04: 2.6.32-25-generic, Ubuntu 10.10: 2.6.35-22-generic
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, servers, also notebooks in the future
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? We had problems with our Dell server
with the bnx2 nic/driver (we had to rebuild the initrd)
Which drivers are missing? bnx2
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 335 MB
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine and a little bit of expect and perl
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> <a href="http://www.desy.de">Research Centre DESY</a>
DESY is one of the world's leading centres for the investigation of the structure of matter
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We are using FAI for installation management for Debian ( 3.0 / 4.0 old ) and
Ubuntu ( 8.04 32bit / 9.04 32bit / 9.10 32bit / 10.04 32bit / 64bit / 10.10 64bit )
</pre> <HR>
<a id=edf></a>
<b>From:</b> Josselin Mouette, josselin dot mouette = edf fr
<br><b>Date:</b> Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:00:28 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>~1000 workstations</b>, 500+ cluster nodes
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.4</b>, 3.1.8, 3.2.17
Which version are you using as your install kernel? lenny, squeeze: plain Debian kernel
etch: backported 2.6.26 or 2.6.32 kernel from lenny/squeeze
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, laptops, infrastructure servers, cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): for cluster nodes
from USB stick: with a custom build
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
We make it so, usually by backporting more recent kernels from Debian.
Which drivers are missing? Usually WiFi, sometimes SATA or GigE.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? A couple MB, < 100 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? Not much.
The bulk of the configuration is managed through
configurationpackages. Software selection is managed through a
set of ca. 100 metapackages.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Configuration packages, using custom scripts and cfengine.
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Energy, <a href="http://www.edf.fr/">EDF - Électricité de France</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We use a custom-built CD to boot our install clients, except for cluster
nodes. The CD embarks the kernel and an initrd with a config script
asking a couple of questions and setting up variables used later on by
FAI scripts & hooks. Thanks to syslinux/isolinux we use the same build
to make bootable USB keys. We also make a bootable USB hard drive
containing a full Debian mirror along with the FAI NFSROOT and
configspace; a standalone install media.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Markus Wigge, wigge === beuth-hochschule ==de
<br><b>Date:</b> Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:40:03 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>about 6</b> so far, more to come.
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3.5</b> from fai-project repository because the original
Debian version 3.2.17 does not support custom repository keys yet.
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
- Citrix XenServer Kernel provided on xs-tools CD
- plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? VM Server, Hardware Server
How do you boot your hosts?
- PXE
- direkt execution by XenServer
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yep
Which drivers are missing? no probs so far.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? not yet, maybe if more people need access.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 248k, #36
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 7
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Education, <a href="http://www.beuth-hochschule.de/hrz/">Beuth Hochschlue für Technik Berlin - HRZ</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
The main reason for FAI was to simplify installations. I knew kickstart
from my former company and needed s.th. similar for debian.
Yes, FAI is ways more flexible.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> anonymous, info this-ad-thing wh-netz. de
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:47:57 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>16</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>actual 3.3.2ubuntu1~ppa1</b>, we will upgrade to 3.4.2ubuntu1~maverick1~ppa1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain ubuntu 2.6.31
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): Yes
using FAI-CD: No
from USB stick: No
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1020K, #176
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 111
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? mainly shell
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> <a href="http://www.wh-netz.de">WH-Netz e.V.</a> Verein für Technologietransfer und Netzwerksicherheit
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We use fai to install our working pc's with the latest Ubuntu.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Andreas Hirczy, ahi =@=itp .=tugraz dot=at
<br><b>Date:</b> Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:54:12 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? over all <b>~200</b> installations, currently running ~100
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3.5</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? custom build kernel 2.6.32.7 and 2.6.35.x and grml kernel 2.6.33
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, server:
web, mail, AFS, Kerberos (experimental)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): preferred
using FAI-CD: none
from USB stick: only when PXE does not work with
the network adapter
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, subversion - might change to git in the future
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 126 kB, 55 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 6 files
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine2
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> education and research, Graz University of Technology,
<a href="http://itp.tugraz.at/">Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
I perform only a very basic installation for workstations: the
install target is text mode only, with openssh-server, cfengine2,
krb5, and AFS client working. I have quite a bit of cfengine and
perl scripting to complete this to either a workstation or a
computing node.
Servers install allmost to a deployment ready state.
Currently I am working an automating notebook installs - including
desktop environment and power-management. This work should later
improve our desktop installation.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Chris Jewell = chris .jewell nodot warwick dot ac.uk>
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:59:18 +0100
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>7</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.4.2ubuntu1~lucid1~ppa1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Ubuntu Lucid 2.6.32-24-server
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cluster execution nodes
How do you boot your hosts? PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing? Broadcom NetExtreme (bnx2.ko)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No, but probably should, and will soon!
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 576k
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 32
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> <a href="http://go.warwick.ac.uk/stats">Department of Statistics</a>, University of Warwick.
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We use FAI to standardise our cluster node installations for a small Departmental
cluster (<a href="pictures/statistics_warwick.jpg">picture</a>) here at Warwick. We find this preferable to disk imaging
as we occasionally add new nodes, and so end up with a heterogeneous cluster.
In general, I would say that I find FAI pretty powerful. My only criticism would
be that it is sometimes difficult to migrate to new versions: for example, I had
to re-write my fai/config directory just recently during a system upgrade from
Ubuntu 8.04 to 10.04. Other than that, it has been fairly painless, apart from a
lot of work choosing which packaged to install on my execution nodes!
Many thanks for your hard work on what looks to be a very promising,
useful, and long lived project.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Frank Groetzner
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:55:45 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>about 50</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.2.17~lenny1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? base-installation for servers later configured by puppet
How do you boot your hosts? PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no
Which drivers are missing? firmware-bnx2
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 30 files, 196K
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 5
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? puppet, shell, perl, expect
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Customer Care Services
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We use FAI only for the base-installation, detect disk-layout, setting up standarized
partitioning, configure raid - and install puppetd which does the whole configuration work for us
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Jonathan McCune, jonmccune = c m u d o t e d u>
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:07:55 -0400
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>33</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3.2ubuntu1~ppa1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.31-22.60
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All HP 8530p or Lenovo T400 laptops.
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Did in 2009. Didn't bother in 2010.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 119M, 39
Two custom kernel .deb's consume about 47MB.
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 15
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Mostly shell, a couple of cfengine.
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Cybersecurity research and education center, <a href="http://www.cylab.cmu.edu">CyLab</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
To manage lab environment for the <a href="http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/tiw/">Trusted Infrastructure Workshop (TIW)</a>
Works pretty well.
</pre> <HR>
<a id=xing></a>
<b>From:</b> Mike Adolphs, mike dod adolphs == xing dod com
<br><b>Date:</b> Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:26:52 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About <b>300-400</b> servers so far
Which version of fai are you using? <b>2.X and 3.X</b> releases
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian vanilla kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Any hosts located in our data centers
including app, db, search, worker and number crunching servers
How do you boot your hosts? PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing?
Works quite well so far on current hardware. We've had some problems
with IBM HS20 Blades, which required to build a custom kernel, but that's history.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Sure, subversion although we're git fans as well.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
2.0: 15 Mb Debian vanilla kernel, #698
3.0: 2 Mb (work just begun), #128
How many files do you have in ../config/files?
2.0: 550
3.0: 62
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> business network, <a href="http://www.xing.com/">XING AG</a>
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Olivier Chaze, eloquant
<br><b>Date:</b> Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:18:34 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>20</b>
Which version of fai are you using? <b>3.3.5</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.33-grml
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Production servers and development servers
How do you boot your hosts? From USB stick
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? 2.6.33-grml yes !
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 14Mb, 64 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 23 files
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Voice Services (VoiceXML hosting), Contact Center Solution, <a href="http://www.eloquant.com/index_en.php">Eloquant</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
We make a install average once a month. We need unstable debian to
recognize the hardware. So we had a lot of differences between two
manual installations of unstable debian with bugs and surprises. Now
with FAI and a local Debian mirror everything is under control.
Thanks a lot !
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> anonymous
<br><b>Date:</b> Wed, 19 May 2010 10:33:27 -0700
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>1500</b>
Which version of fai are you using? we've upgraded over the last two years, <b>currently 3.2.17~lenny1</b>
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Current plain Debian kernel from Lenny
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? data warehouse cluster nodes, web servers,
infrastructure servers like LDAP/DNS/FAI/SVN/cfengine/NTP
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE + DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3 MB
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 10
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Very little customization happens at FAI/install time,
mostly it happens with cfengine afterwards.
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> We're an advertising network.
We serve text-based ads on the internet over HTTP.
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
FAI was great since it is class based like cfengine. Since we already use
cfengine extensively, it was easy to understand and use FAI.
Thanks for the great tool.
</pre> <HR>
<b>From:</b> Nico Schottelius, nico=schottelius ==inf =ethz =ch
<br><b>Date:</b> Tue, 18 May 2010 09:32:04 +0200
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? <b>~300</b>
Which version of fai are you using? Various, from Lenny stable and koeln/experimental
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, web server
How do you boot your hosts? dhcp+pxe only
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? not for newer systems - running ubuntu there
Which drivers are missing? newer intel nics, dell perc (as found in dell r815 [0])
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yep, git.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3.3M, 94
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 31
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? puppet
<b>What is the business of your company/organisation?</b> Computer science department at university, <a href="http://www.systems.ethz.ch/">ETH Zurich Systems Group</a>
<br><b>Additional comments:</b>
Trying to minimise the scripts in fai, because we're trying to bootstrap only with fai,
so configuration and customisation comes from puppet. This is a "general"
problem, that every installation method (debian-installer, fai, kickstart, ...)
has: if relying on the installation system, one spreads around the configuration.
Thus we think that having a minimal system that supports only (some) configuration
system, is the best way to go.
Using fai is pretty straight forwarded, having the "log service" is
very useful, though at the beginning not completly clear where to put
the ssh keys and what's needed to get them into the chroot.
</pre> <HR>
<a id=netways></a>
<b>From:</b> Bernd Erk, info = netways = de
<br><b>Date:</b> Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:59:11 +0000
<pre>
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about <b>160</b>
Which version of fai are you using? always using the recent FAI version
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
* plain Debian-Kernel with aufs-Patches (2.6.26)
* custom build Kernel 2.6.33 based on Debian 2.6.26
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Base setups of Debian-Servers
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing?
* Debian-Kernel is missing drivers for newer RAID-Controller and