Centralized Imaging/OS Deployment
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@coliver said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
You may want to check out WDS. You can pre-register machines in a group and they will auto join the domain when they pxe boot. It's a very powerful tool.
Sure, but that requires the use WDS - and while powerful, it's kinda a PITA compared to Clonezilla. But for large deployments, it's probably worth it.
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@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@coliver said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
You may want to check out WDS. You can pre-register machines in a group and they will auto join the domain when they pxe boot. It's a very powerful tool.
Sure, but that requires the use WDS - and while powerful, it's kinda a PITA compared to Clonezilla. But for large deployments, it's probably worth it.
Sure for the one offs it's not ideal. But for large deployments it's pretty good. It does all the driver management for you... After you upload them to the wds server.
The best part is other then the windows tax it's free.
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I am not changing the name of the domain. I am changing my pc name after I can log in.
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@jmoore said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
I am not changing the name of the domain. I am changing my pc name after I can log in.
yes I understand that.
example - the PC is originally named test123, joined to domain ad.acme.com
In the past (perhaps I was working under bad information) you couldn't change the name Test123 to myPC123 without leaving the domain first. It "worked" but normally had problems after the fact.
But I can't recall what the issues were.
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@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@jmoore said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
I am not changing the name of the domain. I am changing my pc name after I can log in.
yes I understand that.
example - the PC is originally named test123, joined to domain ad.acme.com
In the past (perhaps I was working under bad information) you couldn't change the name Test123 to myPC123 without leaving the domain first. It "worked" but normally had problems after the fact.
But I can't recall what the issues were.
I've done it many times renaming workstations after joining to a domain. Renaming domain controllers and File Servers with Dfs Namespace can have issues.
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Oh ok I see. I don't have any problems doing that yet.
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@black3dynamite said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
I also use Clonezilla.
It has it's quirks - applying an image to a smaller drive than the size of the drive the image was taken from - while you can get it to work, it's a PITA sometimes. Getting it to boot in UEFI mode was also a PITA.
You have to use the alternative ubuntu-based for UEFI.
No you do not.
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@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@black3dynamite said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
I also use Clonezilla.
It has it's quirks - applying an image to a smaller drive than the size of the drive the image was taken from - while you can get it to work, it's a PITA sometimes. Getting it to boot in UEFI mode was also a PITA.
You have to use the alternative ubuntu-based for UEFI.
I spent one Sunday, about 6 hours downloading 15 different versions, making USB after USB.. ug.. finally got one to work after 6+ hours.
Just because you cannot figure something out does not make it a fact.
I have a 2 USB drives that I use to boot clonezilla. One is BIOS and one is UEFI.
Both were made from the same standard ISO Not the alternative Ubuntu one.Most likely what you are complaining about is Secure Boot not UEFI. They are not one and the same.
The stable Debian ISO I used last year does not work with Secure Boot enabled UEFI. THat has nothing to do with it not working with UEFI.
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@black3dynamite said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@ambarishrh said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@black3dynamite said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
I also use Clonezilla.
It has it's quirks - applying an image to a smaller drive than the size of the drive the image was taken from - while you can get it to work, it's a PITA sometimes. Getting it to boot in UEFI mode was also a PITA.
You have to use the alternative ubuntu-based for UEFI.
Could you please share more details?
http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
"All versions of Clonezilla live support machine with legacy BIOS. If your machine comes with uEFI secure boot enabled, you have to use AMD64 version of alternative (Ubuntu-based) Clonezilla live."See this proves your statement incorrect. It does not work with Secure Boot enable UEFI. It works just fine if you disable secure boot long enough to image.
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Considering the fact that once it is decided the tools are mainly used by our help desk team who have minimal/no experience on Linux solutions. I wanted to make sure that we use something that is comfortable for them and once set they are able to make changes without further help from me. Based on these I am now more leaning towards SmartDeploy (Changing the title based on this as well!)
Some of the features I liked on that is the base image is made from a virtual instance so that this can be deployed to any machine and a single image to maintain, the driver packs for almost every model etc. I am planning to evaluate this in detail next week when I am back in the office.
My second choice would be MDT but again if SmartDeploy is taking the pain for spending a lot of time on the initial setup, which we don't have at the moment (lot of internal projects in the pipeline with tight deadlines)
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@jaredbusch said in Centralized Imaging/OS Deployment:
@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@black3dynamite said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:
I also use Clonezilla.
It has it's quirks - applying an image to a smaller drive than the size of the drive the image was taken from - while you can get it to work, it's a PITA sometimes. Getting it to boot in UEFI mode was also a PITA.
You have to use the alternative ubuntu-based for UEFI.
I spent one Sunday, about 6 hours downloading 15 different versions, making USB after USB.. ug.. finally got one to work after 6+ hours.
Just because you cannot figure something out does not make it a fact.
I have a 2 USB drives that I use to boot clonezilla. One is BIOS and one is UEFI.
Both were made from the same standard ISO Not the alternative Ubuntu one.Most likely what you are complaining about is Secure Boot not UEFI. They are not one and the same.
The stable Debian ISO I used last year does not work with Secure Boot enabled UEFI. THat has nothing to do with it not working with UEFI.
It was a learning thing for me - but I did have Secure Boot disabled, I knew that wasn't supported.
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@ambarishrh said in Centralized Imaging/OS Deployment:
Some of the features I liked on that is the base image is made from a virtual instance so that this can be deployed to any machine and a single image to maintain, the driver packs for almost every model etc. I am planning to evaluate this in detail next week when I am back in the office.
JB does this almost exclusively with Clonezilla. I've done it as well, so using a VM doesn't matter to the product.
My second choice would be MDT but again if SmartDeploy is taking the pain for spending a lot of time on the initial setup, which we don't have at the moment (lot of internal projects in the pipeline with tight deadlines)
You're trading money for time here. MDT makes you do all the leg work, you have to find and add the drivers yourself. SmartDeploy takes your money and does that work for you.
