Installing SLES9 32Bit and Smart PackageManager with FAI

Introduction

It is possible to install Suse with FAI and we do this successfully. We do it with the speciality that we don't use yast for package management but smartpm, and documented this here.

For some generic information on using FAI with other distributions, you can look at the FAI multi-distribution page.

Create Yast Repository

1. Copy all SLES9*.iso files to /var/www/SuSE/SLES9_repository
2. get make_sles9_repository Script

   wget http://altf4.org/fai/SuSE/make_sles9_repository.sh && wget http://altf4.org/fai/SuSE/upgrade_sles9repository_withsp.sh

3. make it executable

   chmod 755 make_sles9_repository.sh upgrade_sles9repository_withsp.sh

4. make Repository

   ./make_sles9_repository.sh

5. if you have SP* iso files, to do

   ./upgrade_sles9repository_withsp.sh [SP]

Patch FAI install_packages for Smart

1. get patch

   wget http://altf4.org/fai/SuSE/fai_smart.patch -O /tmp/fai_smart.patch

2. patch /srv/fai/nfsroot/usr/sbin/install_packages

   patch /srv/fai/nfsroot/usr/sbin/install_packages /tmp/fai_smart.patch

Install FAI ConfigFiles for SLES9

1. get config

   wget http://altf4.org/fai/faiconfig_with_SLES9_basefile.tgz -O /tmp/faiconfig_with_SLES9_basefile.tgz

2. without basefiles faiconfig_without_SLES9_basefile.tgz

   wget http://altf4.org/fai/faiconfig_without_SLES9_basefile.tgz -O /tmp/faiconfig_without_SLES9_basefile.tgz

3. install ConfigFiles

   cd /srv/fai/config && tar xvfz /tmp/faiconfig_with_SLES9_basefile.tgz

Configure FAI for SLES9

1. edit /srv/fai/config/class/50-host-classes and add the classes "SUSE" and "SLES932BIT" to the SLES9-Client.
2. edit /srv/fai/config/files/etc/smart/channels/sles932bit.channel/SLES932BIT and change the path to your Yast-Repository
3. edit /srv/fai/config/scripts/LAST/50-misc and change the codeblock:

# Make sure everything is configured properly
echo "Running \"apt-get -f install\" for the last time."
$ROOTCMD apt-get -f install

# copy sources.list
fcopy -i /etc/apt/sources.list

to

if ifclass ! SUSE; then
        # Make sure everything is configured properly
        echo "Running \"apt-get -f install\" for the last time."
        $ROOTCMD apt-get -f install

        # copy sources.list
        fcopy -i /etc/apt/sources.list
fi