This software is used to cleanup PCs in laboratory. If you have PCs with same HW and SW and you do not want to waste your time by manual cleanup, this software can help you. Instead of imaging tools, Obnovang is using rsync algorithm which copy only changed and missing files so it is much more quicker to cleanup entire lab.

ObnovaNG software using initramfs tools for build image ObnovaNG, PXElinux for boot, TFTP, DHCP and Rsync server But this project is prepared for refresh or cleanup computers from local media (usb disk, cdrom, ...) ObnovaNG process

1. bootloader get IP from DHCP and link on TFTP
2. get image pxelinuxu from TFTP and install into memory
3. pxelinux get IP from DHCP and get bootconfig from TFTP 4a) loocalboot 4b) ObnovaNG
4. ObnovaNG get IP from DHCP
5. ObnovaNG get link on config file for ObnovaNG
6. start ObnovaNG with config file

To create kernel and initramfs, needed to boot, please run

$ ./configure
$ make

For more options, see

$ ./configure --help

Result will be in directory bin/ . You can test boot by

$ make test

or extract contents of initramfs to /tmp/obnova/

$ make extract

See rsync manual.

Put generated vmlinuz and initramfs into TFTP server. Download PXELinux and download it there too. See TFTP and PXELinux manual.

Example pxelinux config:
	LABEL ObnovaNG
		kernel obnovang.vmlinuz
		append root=/dev/ram ro init=/bin/obnovang obnovapath="<rsync_server_ip>::obnova" ramdisk_size=32000 loglevel=0 unattended initrd=obnovang.initramfs

Point your DHCP server to boot PCs from network (dhcpd.conf). See DHCP server manual.

subnet x.x.x.x netmask y.y.y.y {
	allow booting;
        allow bootp;

        next-server tftp_server;
        filename "/pxelinux/pxelinux.0";
}

Enable booting from network in BIOS.

If you have any question or recommendation for ObnovaNG, feel free to use github resources.

Lukáš MACURA, Tomáš Králik, Pavel Běhal and others