Creating and deploying Linux disk images

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Creating and deploying Linux disk images

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Creating and deploying Linux disk images

Computer disk images contain the entire content of a computer's hard drive. Disk images include the operating system (OS), applications, and user data. Deployment Solution lets you create Linux disk images using either the Ghost imaging tool or the RapiDeploy imaging tool. The disk image can be deployed on multiple computers on which you want the same setup as that of the imaged client computer. During deployment of the image, all the OS settings from the captured image are replicated on the client computers.

When you perform the Create Image task with Disk Image as the option, a Symantec Management Platform package is created for the captured disk image. The Disk image is stored on the Deployment share of the site server on which the Package Service runs. Each image is stored in a separate folder and has a GUID. Information about the image is also stored in the CMDB as an image resource. You can use this package to distribute the image to other Package Servers

For Linux operating system, deploying disk images and back-up images does not support the ReiserFS file system. Image deployment supports only the SUSE Ext3 file system. If you have a ReiserFS partition, you must use the -raw switch when you image the partition to preserve its structure. Linux IDE images must be deployed on computers that have the Linux IDE disk. SCSI disk images must also be deployed on computers having the SCSI disk image.

The following process lists the steps that you must follow to create an image of a Linux client computer and to deploy the Linux image on other client computers.

Following are the steps that you must follow to create an image of a Linux client computer:

Table: Process for creating an image of a Linux client computer

Step	Action	Description
Step 1	Launch the Console	Launch the Symantec Management Console. You can launch the console either from the Start menu of the Notification Server computer or from any computer of the network. To access the console from a different computer, you must type the following: http://<IP address of NS> /altiris/console
Step 2	Prepare a reference computer for imaging.	Prepare the reference computer that contains the core software and settings that you want to be replicated on other computers.
Step 3	Create a client job for the deployment tasks in the console	To create a client job, right-click on the Deployment and Migration folder and select New > Client Job menu. By default, a job of the name New Client Job is created that you can rename appropriately. Navigate to the Manage > Jobs and Tasks menu of the console and create a client job for the Deployment and Migration folder. To create a client job, right-click on the Deployment and Migration folder and select New > Client Job menu. By default, a job of the name New Client Job is created that you can rename appropriately.
Step 4	Execute the Prepare for Image capture task	Execute the Prepare for Image capture task to ensure that the captured image does not contain any hardware-dependent data. You can then deploy a hardware independent image on other computers.
Step 5	Create an image of the client computer	Execute the Create Image task to create the disk image of the reference computer. You can either execute the task immediately by using the Quick Run option of the task that you have saved or you can schedule the task to be executed later on the reference computer.

Following are the steps that you must follow to deploy an image of a Linux client computer on client computers:

Table: Process for deploying an image of a Linux client computer

Step	Action	Description
Step 1	Launch the Console	Launch the Symantec Management Console. You can launch the console either from the Start menu of the Notification Server computer or from any computer of the network. To access the console from a different computer, you must type the following: http://<IP address of NS> /altiris/console
Step 2	Create a client job for the deployment tasks in the console	To create a client job, right-click on the Deployment and Migration folder and select New > Client Job menu. By default, a job of the name New Client Job is created that you can rename appropriately. Navigate to the Manage > Jobs and Tasks menu of the console and create a client job for the Deployment and Migration folder. To create a client job, right-click on the Deployment and Migration folder and select New > Client Job menu. By default, a job of the name New Client Job is created that you can rename appropriately.
Step 3	Boot the client computer in Automation environment	Create a Boot To task and add the task to the client job to boot the client computer to Automation environment.
Step 4	Deploy the image on the client computer	Create a Deploy Image task for the target client computers. You can either execute the task immediately by using the Quick Run option of the task that you have saved or you can schedule the task to be executed later on the reference computer.
Step 5	Boot the client computer to production	Boot the client computer to production using the Boot To task.