Main Page

Hello and welcome to the FAI wiki.

This is a public wiki for FAI - Fully Automatic Installation - a tool for automatic installation of Debian and other Linux Distributions. It's a place for users and developers of FAI to share information. If you have some information on FAI to share, see the page wiki registration - you need to write a mail, because we can't handle the spam otherwise. Also, please read editing rules.

getting FAI

if you want the latest and greatest version:

• download it from: http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/download/
• add this to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/download sarge koeln

• install it within debian sid
• check out the sources from subversion:

svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/fai/trunk fai-sources

(will require building the package by entering the directory and do something like "dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot")

documentation and examples

• Main documentation for FAI is the fai guide: Either in english, french, romanian
• FAI Homepage
• Resources - there are some information resources about FAI available "out there", as well as some unofficial developer branches, that are handled somewhere else until that code is incoporated in the FAI main Branch - and we want to point to them.
• Wishlist (for those users that can't use the debian bts for reporting a bug of type wishlist and for developers who want to know what users wish)
• reporting bugs and also maybe find fixes for problems that you might encounter when using FAI.
• example classes and helper scripts - classes and small code contributions that are not (already) part of the FAI distribution
• tips and tricks - other hints for users by users that are not exactly written in code like the above - general advice, configuration hints
  • smaller tips and tricks
  • Install Ubuntu and other distributions with FAI by using FAI multi-distribution
  • Using gpg-authenticated debian-archives
  • Using FAI to set up XEN domains
  • Using FAI to set up VServers
  • Software-RAID with mdadm
  • patched version of setup_harddisks: Code refactoring, LVM/RAID support and POD manual page: Copyright (c) 2003, Sam Vilain]
  • LVM & RAID
  • FAI-Logs via Mail
  • Creating class-based documentaion
  • Using_customized_kernels_with_FAI
  • Variables used in FAI
  • Perform FAI softupdates on many machines at the same time
  • Installing laptops with PCMCIA cards using a floppy disk
  • Installing onto Dell PowerEdge Servers
  • Automatic find out and use MAC addresses insted of IP addresses for PXE booting MAC_based_Booting_PXE
• Success Stories - who is using FAI, how and why - and, when available pictures of the machines installed with FAI :)
• User reports by filling out the FAI questionnaire (TODO: create a webform for this)
• user FAQ ( from questions in the mailing list and on IRC oftc.net #fai) - We took the contents of the old and somewhat unmaintained fai faqmatic to this wiki to have all information more centralized. Please use the Wiki from now on.
• linux-fai mailing list infos (Netiquette, how to subscribe and use)
• this wiki needs a Logo

• a short tutorial on www.debian-administration.org
• a talk on fai and debian

Developer information

• Stuff for people interested in helping with FAI: Developers information
• A new partitioning tool: setup_harddisks_2

Wiki Information

• About this Wiki - info on this wiki
• help for editing (mainly mediawiki documentation links)
• editing rules - some ideas that make collaborative work here easier
• practice wiki writing here