Did you know you can use the imaging in ZLM7 to image Linux and Windows?
Nice solution for a standalone imaging solution if you just want a nearly-smart(*) imaging story. It’s fast, furious and does what I need.
(*) for true smartness use ZENworks 7 with the full policy enablement of imaging.
I was talking to a friend in Barcelona about application development (note – I’m not a hacker; “I don’t write code” TM).
He mentioned that Ruby on Rails was getting a few people inside Novell excited.
Since then I’ve stumbled across literally dozens of brand new, hot, useful web apps that are based on Ruby on Rails. All stemming from a few core projects from 37Signals.
ZENworks OS imaging has always been based on the Linux kernel – it’s fast, efficient, has a great networking stack and is also extensible. None of the problems of DOS and getting NDIS drivers etc.
Earlier versions of ZENworks – (ZfD 3.x, ZfD 4.0, ZENworks 6, ZENworks 6.5) – spawned a slew of sites dedicated to tweaking this Linux environment. Notable is the Novell Forge Project zfdimgdrv. The imaging environment has also been extended by the likes of ENGL.
ZENworks 7 changed to a SLES 9 SP2-based kernel; this provides extensive hardware support (and real support; things that have been tested).
For unsupported hardware – or to add updated drivers – life is now a lot simpler.
Matt Misbach – one of the ZENworks engineers – passed on this tip:
As mentioned I’m working on a best practices guide for ZLM7.
I’m writing a discussion of the package universe concept; how it differs from previous versions of ZLM (ZLM 6.x and RCE) and some design recommendations.
I also wrote a nifty script to populate the package universe 🙂 I’ll share that when I’ve tested it to death – but here’s the output:
Right now I can build all of my package universe as well as SP2 updates for SLES 9 and NLD 9. It takes about 20 minutes and minimal prep work.
(more…)
I started zlmirror running last night – on my live server.
It ate all my bandwidth 🙂
I’ve been flooded with requests for a more detailed ZENworks 7 Linux Management document – something like what I wrote for ZLM 6.6.1
I’m on it now. I am installing to a fresh, new SLES 9 server – and hopefully I’ll get something out soon.
Current fun – documenting the server-side dependancies. XFree86-libs? wtf? Turns out some of the eDirectory management tools have funky requirements. Do people really build servers with X and a desktop on them?
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