To create a SystemImager image server, you must install a systemimager-<ARCH>boot package(s) and then a systemimager-server package that supports your clients.
The boot packages support multiple configurations. Because different client configurations require different drivers, kernel versions, etc., SystemImager allows you to install different boot packages, which are known as "boot flavors."
Each SystemImager release provides the "standard" flavors for each supported architecture. For example, the 3.0.0 release should have these packages: systemimager-boot-i386-standard_3.0.0-1_all.deb, systemimager-boot-ia64-standard_3.0.0-1_all.deb, systemimager-i386boot-standard.noarch.rpm, and systemimager-ia64boot-standard.noarch.rpm
SystemImager and its standard boot flavors support most common hardware configurations. The .config files list the options for this kernel.
You can use other flavors at any time to support alternate client configurations, and mulitple boot flavors can be installed simultaneously. However, boot packages are strongly coupled to the version of SystemImager for which they were created. The SystemImager boot package version strings should match the version string of the installed version of SystemImager.
To create a custom flavor perfectly compatible with the distribution you need to install you can exploit the UYOK (Use Your Own Kernel) feature. Standard flavors use a general purpose kernel that supports a lot of hardware components, but obviously it can't support all the possible devices that could be present in a totally generic client. For this reason starting from 3.6.x release the UYOK (UseYourOwnKernel) was introduced. This feature allows you to use the same kernel that runs in your golden client to perform the installation in other clients. In this way it's possible to theoretically support all the hardware/components you could have. For more informations see http://wiki.systemimager.org/index.php/UYOK .
To install an image server for Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (woody) and later, run:
# apt-get update
# apt-get install systemimager-server
For RPM based distributions:
Download and install the systemimager-server RPM and required dependencies from http://systemimager.org .
Install each package with the rpm command.
# rpm -Uvh *.rpm
The rpms leave the systemimager service disabled by default, so you will need to start the systemimager service in order to make images available to your clients via rsync.
To make systemimager automatically start each time you boot your system, run:
chkconfig --add systemimager
You can list the set of runlevels where systemimager will be automatically started by running:
chkconfig --list systemimager
To start systemimager by hand, run:
service systemimager start
For other distributions: If your distribution does not support RPMs or .debs, you must build and install from the source tarball; binary tarball installations are no longer supported. Instructions for building SystemImager can be found in the README file within the source tarball or on the wiki site ( http://wiki.systemimager.org ).
Installing Flamethrower for multicast installations. See Chapter 4, HOWTO Use Flamethrower for Multicast Installs