User reports
Currently we have more than 350 detailed reports. Please also fill out the FAI questionnaire.Overview with logos of some FAI users.
From: memorysolution
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2024 09:37:47 +0000
From: Marco Ferrara
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2024 16:33:04 +0100
From: anonymous, tinkster +AT+proton==me=
Date: Fri, 03 May 2024 03:39:07 +0000
From: Vimec.nl
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2024 17:18:56 +0200
From: anonymous, Sorbonne Université
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2024 13:15:28 +0200
From: Service informatique IGE, university grenoble-alpes
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2024 17:00:59 +0200
From: Ralf Aumüller
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2023 14:43:48 +0100
From: Robert Wooden
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2023 08:20:57 -0500
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2023 09:48:50 +0000
From: Florent
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2023 13:49:35 +0200
From: Henning Glawe, first.gla..@@mpsd@dot@mpg de
Date: Sun, 28 May 2023 12:44:28 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 11 May 2022 19:20:07 +0000
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2022 15:33:12 +0100
From: someone, @ ocado dot com
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2021 12:35:05 +0100
From: Sinh Lam, first.last xxxxxxxx dot-com
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:01:53 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2021 12:46:12 +0000
From: Jan Novak, repcom at_gmail dot-com
Date: Tue, 18 May 2021 08:25:38 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2021 15:10:53 +0200
From: Ondrej Jombik, ceo aatt platon dot net
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2020 04:00:42 +0100 (CET)
From: Frank Morawietz
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2020 12:52:21 +0000
From: Jan Hanten
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2020 00:26:13 +0200 (CEST)
From: Frank Steinberg, last name at ibr.cs.tu-bs dot .de
Date: Wed, 27 May 2020 13:20:27 +0200
From: Alexandre Duplaix, Sagemcom
Date: Wed, 20 May 2020 06:21:49 +0000
From: Mike Gabriel, sunweaver === debian dot=org
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2020 08:56:14 +0000
From: Bruce Allen, Alexander Post, Henning Fehrmann, Carsten Aulbert, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2020 11:08:35 +0100
From: anonymous, high school in Bavaria
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2020 20:42:23 +0100
From: Jean-mathieu CHANTREIN, pre.post@ univ minus angers dot.fr
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:44:27 +0100 (CET)
From: Steffen Grunewald, AEI Golm
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:29:39 +0100
From: Nicolas Renault, nicolas =a=dot= renault +at+ openevents. fr
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 14:29:00 +0100
From: fai-support = lihas +.de, Adrian Reyer
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2019 14:12:51 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2019 23:12:09 +0000
From: Volker Epting, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2019 09:30:41 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2018 11:54:56 +0100
From: Reiner Schulz, R.lastname=dvz-mv.de
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2018 08:34:17 +0000
From: Marc SCHAEFER, lastname @@alphanet .dot=ch
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2018 13:58:05 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2018 12:16:02 +0200
From: Sylvain MILOT, first@bic mni dot .mcgill .ca
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2018 22:49:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Markus Lindberg
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 08:30:38 +0200
From: Maximilian Stein, ms X alarm minus dispatcher de
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 19:54:03 +0200
From: 朴文学, piao100101 gmailcom
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 18:11:46 +0900
From: Jörg Striewski, last.at.ismll.de
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 11:13:48 +0100
From: Christian Meyer, c 2 h 5 o h @ web dot=de
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 01:17:40 +0100
From: Andrew Ruthven, first.last ==a=t catalyst.net.nz
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 10:40:31 +1300
From: Mark Devaney
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2017 08:11:44 -0600
From: TUXEDO Computers GmbH, tux aT companyname .com
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2017 12:09:32 +0200
From: Russell Currie, University of Cambridge
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 09:17:05 +0100
From: Bill MacAllister, bill at ca-zephyr dot OORRGG
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2017 14:46:54 -0700
From: Matthias, Computer Science Department of TU Darmstadt
Date: Tue, 16 May 2017 16:29:28 +0200
From: Michael Koeberle
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:14:34 +0100
From:Ian Kelling, firstname @ == iankelling == dot = org
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 08:34:49 -0800
From: René Bleisch, lastname climate =at= unibe dot TLD for schweiz
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2017 16:03:56 +0100
From: Brian Kroth bp+lastname a t engr d o t .wisc.edu
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2016 09:28:46 -0500
From: Guglielmi Matteo, lastname.firstname @ epfl.ch
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2016 16:56:05 +0000
From: anonymous at kaneo-gmbh.de
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:19:38 +0200
From: Andrew Bezella, aLASTNAME =at= archive.org
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 13:52:21 -0700
From: anonymous
Date: Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 11:16:23 +0100
From: Bruce Merry
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 10:34:49 +0200
From: Jens Schmidt, lastn ame at iils .de
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 18:15:36 +0100
From: Lisa Marie Maginnis, l i s a m = f sf = o r g
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2015 00:51:31 -0500
From: Wolfgang Hotwagner, www.toscom.at
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 17:50:36 +0100
From: Neelesh Gurjar, neel dot last name gmail com
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2015 21:36:19 +0530
From: Ricardo Branco Pinto
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 17:00:37 +0000
From: Christian Meyer, c 2 h 5 o h @ web dot=de
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 19:00:06 +0200
From: Bruno Kleinert, name1.name2 at informatik.uni minus erlangen.de
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2015 17:05:47 +0200
From: Luke from brandwatch
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:03:31 +0100
From: Rikard Nordin, first.last at l i u dot .se
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 09:25:45 +0200
From: Steven Wend
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2015 08:55:58 +0000
From: Jan-Hendrik Zab, lastname == l3s=dot=.de
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 18:00:17 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 15:43:02 +0200
From: Bernhard Glomm
Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 14:33:30 +0200
From: Roland Dieterich, lastname mpipz dot mpg.de
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:48:18 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 10:07:43 +0200
From: Jurrie Overgoor, info == narrowxpres = nl
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 20:21:51 +0100
From: Sven Schumacher, lastname tfd uni=minus=hannover dot=de
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 17:51:32 +0100
From: Steffen Eichler, name1.name2 @ stayfriends.com
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:13:29 +0100
From: Michael van Appeldorn
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:36:54 +0100
From: Frank Steinberg
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2013 11:25:48 +0200
From: Andreas Sindermann, sinder ä thp döt uni-koeln de
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 11:00:10 +0200 (MEST)
From: Nils Schroeder nils dotschroeder =cewecol o r dotde>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 14:39:52 +0000
From: Steve Jahl, j a h l csail dot mit,edu
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2013 11:14:38 -0400
From: Harald Staub, firstname . lastname @switch .ch>
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 17:08:10 +0200
From: Tobias Kreilos, firstname dot lastname @ physik.uni dash marburg de
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:00:24 +0100
From: Paolo Miotto = paolo. miotto @at@ uniud dot it
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:01:00 +0100
From: anonymous math.fau.de
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2012 10:52:22 +0100
From: Katarzyna Myrek, katarz y n a == myrek = pl, michal dot dwuznik notdotbut@ g m a i l.c o m
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2012 19:24:56 +0200
From: Denny Schierz, linuxmail <four>lin dot=net
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:23:56 +0200
From: Christopher Huhn, hpc gsi de
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:43:24 +0200
From: Sebastien Varrette, first . lastname @ uni.lu
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 11:37:25 +0200
From: Olaf Ohlenmacher, olf == obda. dddeee
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2012 20:17:29 +0100
From: Liane Siebert, arch dot siebert ===vienna onedotagain at
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 14:47:47 +0100
From: Steffen Knauf, SKnauf X chip=DE
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:06:20 +0100
From: Philipp Gasteiger, Xgasteiger Xmunichx Xde
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:37:05 +0200
From: Michael Fladerer
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2011 18:12:27 +0200
From: Antonio RUSSO, antonio-externe.russo -edf- Xfr
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 12:06:16 +0200
From: Solomon Matthews, Solomon dotMatthews att=riotintoDOT.com
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 12:54:53 +1000
From: Thomas Leitner
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 16:47:40 +0200
From: Alexander Swen
Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 17:14:00 +0200 (CEST)
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 17:56:16 +0200
From: Syd Alsobrook, syd | ittagteam dod= com
Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 11:44:18 -0400
From: Steffen Eichler, StayFriends, Germany
Date: Mon, 2 May 2011 13:54:54 +0200
From: Hans-Gerd van Schelve, LVM Versicherung, Germany
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:01:16 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:47:09 +0100
From: Frank Doelitzscher, doelitz :ad: hs - furtwangen .de
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:04:08 +0100
From: Dirk Sandbrink, Uni Münster
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:42:44 +0100
From: Frederik Wagner = Frederik .Wagner @physik dot uni minus muenchen. de
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:31:49 +0100
From: Mark Eisenblaetter, mark doot eisenblaetter gm ail dooot c o m
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:59:34 +0100
From: Kai Wilke, kiste===netzworkk===de
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:21:24 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:31:44 +0100
From: Frederik Konietzny, f r k o = fr.ed.eri.k.k.on.iet.z.ny = de
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:33:30 +0100
From: andrew bezella, abezella a r c h i v e org
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:51:16 -0800
From: Jan Westendorf
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:24:00 +0100
From: Josselin Mouette, josselin dot mouette = edf fr
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:00:28 +0100
From: Markus Wigge, wigge === beuth-hochschule ==de
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:40:03 +0100
From: anonymous, info this-ad-thing wh-netz. de
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:47:57 +0200
From: Andreas Hirczy, ahi =@=itp .=tugraz dot=at
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:54:12 +0200
From: Chris Jewell = chris .jewell nodot warwick dot ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:59:18 +0100
From: Frank Groetzner
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:55:45 +0200
From: Jonathan McCune, jonmccune = c m u d o t e d u>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:07:55 -0400
From: Mike Adolphs, mike dod adolphs == xing dod com
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:26:52 +0200
From: Olivier Chaze, eloquant
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:18:34 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 10:33:27 -0700
From: Nico Schottelius, nico=schottelius ==inf =ethz =ch
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 09:32:04 +0200
From: Bernd Erk, info = netways = de
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:59:11 +0000
From: Michael Goetze
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:41:10 +0100
From: Karsten Hens
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:30:09 +0100
From: Grant Root, grootXdayton-phoenixXcom
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:29:18 -0400
From: Joel Merrick, joel.merrick =gmail|| com
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:25:36 +0000
From: Erwan Hesry, erwanhesry =gmailcom
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:06:29 +0100
From: Manuel Prinz
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:09:08 +0100
From: Paul Lathrop, =+=plathrop = digg _dot com
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:49:08 -0700
From: Patrick Cervicek
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 15:13:21 +0100 (CET)
From: informatik uni mannheim de
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:40:04 +0100
From: Robert Markula, firstname. surname @ gmx.net>
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:12:16 +0100
From: Florian Maier, florian =maier _muenchen d o t .de>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:05:15 +0100
From: anonymous, zivit.de
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:01:36 +0100
From: Mike Carvalho, Mike=Carvalho=mathworks=com
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 11:24:30 -0500
From: anonymous
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:29:14 +0100
From: Alexey, also =at= is =minus= nn . ru
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:45:18 +0300
From: Andreas Schuldei, andreas .aa. schuldei / org
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 14:03:55 +0100
From: Stephan Hermann, sh sour cec ode. d e
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:34:28 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:36:12 +0200 (CEST)
From: Vincent Batoufflet, BUF Compagnie
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:17:53 +0200
From: Gordon Grubert, grubert @@physik uni----greifswald dot de
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:39:57 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:11:31 +0200 (CEST)
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 11:20:35 -0500
From: Javier Martínez Lago, edoreld=gmail=com
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:02:10 +0200
From: Hannes Rist
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 18:19:42 +0200
From: Ernest Jones. ejonesca++yahoo =com
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 08:43:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gebhardt Thomas gebhardt=hrz_uni-marburg_de
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 13:38:15 +0200
From: Fabian Haupt, fhaupt =informatik. uni- wuerzburg || de
Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 16:36:26 +0200
From: Sebastian Juzwiuk
Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 11:06:18 +0200
From: Nicolas Courtel. courtel =cena dot=fr
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:00:57 +0200
From: Christoph Kluenter
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 17:32:55 +0200
From: Gert Huisman, gert -@- few dot vu =nl>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:02:45 +0200
From: Ronny Aasen, fai +@+ aasen = cx
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:52:35 +0200
From: Birgit Kattner. Birgit dot Kattner aadd hrz.uni-giessen dot de
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:18:20 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 17:08:55 +0100
From: Henning Fehrmann, henning. fehrmann {} AEI dod mpg dod de
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 12:33:04 +0100
From: Jens Strohschnitter, Jens.Strohschnitter rwz de
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:10:12 +0100
From: Greg Cunningham, gregc =+= crafty.homelinux + net
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:37:37 +1100
From: Axel Freyn, Axel-Freyn (A=) gmx.de and Bernd Kloss, kl =a= gym-anna.a.by.schule.de
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:37:46 +0200
From: Vincent Fortier
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 10:53:51 -0400
From: Gerhard Grygiel, gerhard.grygiel = desy.de
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:14:58 +0200
From: Joseph Rawson, umeboshi3 + gmail.com
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:34:51 -0500
From: Daniel Taschik
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:07:54 +0200
From: Oleg Roitburd
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 15:18:27 +0200
From: Owen Shoemaker, oshoemaker +@= flektor-inc dot. com
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:31:02 -0700
From: Olivier Le Thanh Duong, olivier {} lethanh d_ot be>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:16:55 +0200
From: Goesta Smekal, goesta | smekal + at
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:09:30 +0200
From: Ralf Spenneberg, ralf : spenneberg net
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:18:49 +0200
From: Philipp Grau, phgrau _a_ zedat dot fu-berlin.de
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 14:07:37 +0200
From: Andrew Janke, a dot janke =+= gmail + com>
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 07:30:06 +1000
From: Volker Epting
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:32:58 +0200
From: Ralf Tomczak, noemail @ mobile.de
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 10:55:26 +0100
From: Sebastien Varrette, sebastien dot varrette -a t- uni.lu
Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 15:00:41 +0200
From: Derrell Lipman, derrell.lipman ,at, backlottech com
Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 10:22:42 -0400
From: TOUZEAU DAVID, david .touzeau +a+d+ fr.kaspersky .com
Date: Wed, 07 May 2008 14:28:23 +0200
From: Fabian Haupt, fhaupt X informatik.uni-wuerzburg dot de
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:54:57 +0100
From: Laurent Coustet, ed =@ debian-fr dod net
Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:36:13 +0100
From: Ulrich Kortenkamp Ulrich.Kortenkamp = ph-gmuend = de
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:44:37 +0100
From: Sebastian Hetze, s.hetze _at= linux-ag do. com
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 11:42:33 +0100
From: Benoit Mortier, benoit.mortier ,at, opensides do_t be
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:39:49 +0200
From: Gerald Klinkl
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:53:18 +0200
From: Maxim kovgan
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:01:59 +0200
From: Lou Ruppert, lruppert aatt ucf .org
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:28:47 -0400
From: Steffen Bornemann, steffen.bornemann =a=t htw- aalen. de
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 09:29:22 +0200
From: Per Foreby, perf at+at ddg dot lth.se
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 16:07:52 +0200 (CEST)
From: anonymous, info =@- servercrew dot. de
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 18:25:31 +0200
From: Tomas Ögren, stric add_ cs.umu dod se
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 20:54:18 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:18:48 +0200
From: John Heim, jheim .ad@. math.wisc dot .edu
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:52:21 -0500
From: Thomas Böhme, MC-Wetter GmbH
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:21:25 +0200
From: Mrfai, fai _ad_ informatik dotr uni dash koeln .de
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:16:15 +0200
From: Andreas Hirczy, ahi xadx itp dot tugraz.at
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:44:18 +0200
From: Remi Bergsma
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:02:04 +0200 (CEST)
From: Alan Wood, wooda @=@ westminster _ ac _uk
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:19:37 +0100
From: Russ Allbery, rra =@ stanford _dod edu
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:11:28 -0700
From: Katharina Drexel, Genua GmbH
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 12:37:14 +0200 (CEST)
From: Frank Doepper, fd ** taz * de
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 15:37:33 +0200 (CEST)
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:07:50 +0100
From: Holger Parplies, wopp _a_d parplies dod de
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 23:47:24 +0200
From: Steffen Grunewald, AEI MPG
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 12:17:28 +0200
From: Brian Gannon, bgannon ad gmail_dod_ com
Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 14:13:11 -0500
From: Jonathon Blumenthal, jonblumenthal =ad_ gmail dod com
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:34:28 -0400
From: Jeffrey Stolte
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:47:37 -0600
From: anonymous, dot nz
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 22:06:46 +1200
From: Norbert Tretkowski, tretkowski aadd ip-exchange dot de
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:33:22 +0200
From: Toomas Tamm
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:08:56 +0300
From: Tobias Doerffel
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 14:30:55 +0100
From: Tobias Herziger
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:44:27 +0100
From: Dan McGrath
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:11:35 -0500
From: Emil Gorter, emil (ad) ripe net
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:55:21 +0100
From: Peter Gervai, grinapo ata gmail.com
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:32:34 +0100
From: Christoph Schulthess, christoph dot schulthess ad post dot_ch
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 12:47:29 +0100
From: Mathieu Rozieres
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:40:00 +0100
From: Raoul Borenius, borenius_dfn_de
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:05:24 +0100 (CET)
From: Gavin Burris, ga5in __ psu.edu
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:08:29 -0500
From: Paul Lussier, @_you_may_ask_for_it
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:38:43 -0500
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 11:16:47 +0100
From: Maurice Makaay, maurice.makaay @in te rn l.net
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 19:42:56 +0100
From: Peter Brownell, greenman aatt muti.tv
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 17:16:21 -0000
From: Andreas Jobs, Andreas.Jobs X@ ruhr -uni -bochum.de
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:05:11 +0100
From: Sebastian Schmitzdorff | sebastian . schmitzdorff hamburgnet . de
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:50:44 +0100
From: Michal Svamberg, svamberg a|t civ.zcu.cz
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:43:26 +0100
From: Hans-J. Ullrich, hans. ullrich æd loop.de
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:30:20 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 10:20:54 +0100
From: Trinity Centre for High Performance Computing, info %ad% tchpc.tcd.ie
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:10:55 +0100
From: Adrian von Bidder, avbidder [äd] fortytwo.ch
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:06:37 +0200
From: Carl Caum, carl ä_d cs.mtsu.edu
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:05:21 -0500
From: Russel Hill; russh347 xadx gmail.com
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 09:23:16 -0700
From: Rudy Gevaert; Rudy.Gevaert _ta_ UGent.be
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:55:54 +0200
From: Peter Ackermann; packermann=et=thomas-krenn.com
Date: Mon, 08 May 2006 11:13:33 +0200
From: Jan Jansen, jan.jansen =a=t uni-dortmund.de
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:40:52 +0200
From: Sebastian Broekhoven s.broekhoven _A_d networking4all.com
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:00:43 +0200
From: Sebastian Schmitzdorff
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:26:57 +0200
From: IT Support Mathematical Institute, support =ad_ math.uni-bonn.de
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:34:29 +0200
From: Marco Jankowski, Marco.Jankowski aatt bfr.bund.de
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 08:58:38 +0200
From: Guy Coates, gmpc =a_t sanger.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 09:41:19 +0100 (BST)
From: Bertrand Rétif, contact aatt phosphore-si.com
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 09:57:12 +0200
From: Juraj Holtak, juraj aadd proaut.org
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:20:01 +0100
From: Mamadou Sow, Mamadou.Sow aXt lipn.univ-paris13.fr
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:49:15 +0100
From: Chris Allen chrisa xatx matrixscience.com
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:54:11 +0000
From: Xavier Claessens, probtech +at+ ulb.ac.be
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:11:36 +0100
From: Ryan Nowakowski, ryan =ad_ britestream.com
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:41:43 -0600
From: Andrew Ruthven, andrew.ruthven ==a=t catalyst.net.nz
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 14:56:32 +1300
From: Marc SAUVEUR, marc at= 7ici.be
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 19:40:19 +0100
From: Werner Fischer, wfischer äd thomas-krenn.com
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 12:47:43 +0100
From: Julia Longtin, risc =äd= volumehost.com
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 10:16:01 -0600
From: Petr Kubanek, petr=kubanek.net
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:52:10 +0000
From: Sirk Johannsen, sirk.johannsen _a_t minick.net
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 15:43:19 +0200
From: Mattias Wadenstein, maswan(a)hpc2n.umu.se
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:06:23 +0200 (MEST)
From: S. Kaikkonen, skaikkon #at# netlab.hut.fi
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:23:33 +0300 (EEST)
From: Roberto Giana
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 07:34:07 +0200
From: Kenny Duffus
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 10:09:29 +0100
From: Christopher Huhn, linuxgroup =a@ gsi.de
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:11:10 +0200
From: Klaus Ita, klaus.ita =a=t ai.wu-wien.ac.at
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 16:54:04 +0200
From: James Bromberger, james __@= rcpt.to
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 09:44:33 +0100
From: Daniel Hamilton
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 22:07:15 +0100
From: Kalle Happonen, kalle.happonen ä|t hip.fi
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 10:30:12 +0300
From: Richard Wonka, richard.wonka a|t altanapharma.de
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 14:45:42 +0200
From: Steffen Grunewald, aei.mpg.de
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 15:45:00 +0200
From: Manuel Kiessling, manuel+ät+kiessling.net
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 13:41:29 +0200
From: Christopher Redmon, credmon|at|ece.utk.edu
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:55:08 -0400
From: Justin Beckley jbeckley=at_ece.utk.edu
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:59:19 -0400
From: Michael Gellman, m.gellman =ät_ imperial.ac.uk
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 14:41:14 +0100
From: Daniel J. Priem, danielpriem _ät- flexserv.de
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 16:46:19 +0200
From: Guejo, glatapoui _at_ gmail.com
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 02:10:10 +0200
From: Henning Sprang, henning_sprang ät gmx.de
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 16:26:58 +0200
From: Ognyan Kulev, ogi _at= fmi.uni-sofia.bg
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 15:40:22 +0300
From: anonymous, unibas.ch
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 10:53:08 +0200
From: Michael Tautschnig, michael.tautschnig _at zt-consulting.com
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:54:23 +0200
From: Stefan Berder, sbe _at= oleane.net
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 19:39:15 +0200
From: Mathew A. Chrystal, matt =at chrystal-2.science.nd.edu
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:12:25 -0500
From: Andreas Schockenhoff
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 21:48:53 +0100
From: Ingo Wichmann, linuxhotel.de
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 11:21:43 +0200
From: Robin Schröder, tp4.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 15:41:58 +0100
From: Federico Sevilla III, jijo =at free.net.ph
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 19:38:41 +0800
From: Ben Vanhaeren
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 10:47:10 +0100
From: Ulrich Scholler
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 19:35:37 +0100
From: Pedro Ferreira, pedro.m.ferreira -at- gmail.com
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:35:06 +0000
From: Alexander Bugl, bugl -at dkrz.de
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 09:47:38 +0100
From: Jeroen Akershoek, Jeroena -at- sara.nl
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:49:22 +0100
From: Vincent Kraeutler, vincent :at igc.phys.chem.ethz.ch
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:12:08 +0100
From: Jens Bergmann, jens.bergmann -at ewetel.de
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 18:46:33 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:51:40 +0100
From: Noah Meyerhans noahm - at- csail.mit.edu
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:25:50 -0500
From: Heiko Zang, hosteurope.de
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:14:29 +0100 (MET)
From: David Hausheer, hausheer AT tik.ee.ethz.ch
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 12:04:06 +0100
From: Ben Willcox ben.willcox at british-gymnastics.org
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:05:18 +0000
From: Thomas Glanzmann sithglan @ stud.uni-erlangen.de
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 14:12:13 +0100
From: Charles Fry cfry at ece.cmu.edu
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 15:40:26 -0500
From: Francois JEANMOUGIN, Francois.JEANMOUGIN @ 123multimedia.com
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:28:23 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:09:46 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:09:26 +0100
From: anonymous
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 09:45:19 +0100
From: Jay Kusler kusler at nscl.msu.edu
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:30:18 -0500
From: Uli Fietz, Fietz @ BLB-Karlsruhe.de
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:17:43 +0100
From: Robert LeBlanc leblanc at byu.edu
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 18:19:38 -0600
From: Gerfried Fuchs, alfie at sil.at
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 12:04:01 +0200
From: Trishan R. de Lanerolle
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:00:29 -0400
From: Holger Mense hmense at math.uni-paderborn.de
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 11:54:57 +0200 (MEST)
From: Arcady Genkin agenkin at cdf.toronto.edu
Date: 28 Sep 2004 14:20:44 -0400
From: Dale Einarson
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 12:05:19 -0400
From: Harald Gröne ha at mst.hamtec.de
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:31:08 +0200
From: Cyril Bouthors, cyril at jexiste.org
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:28:44 +0200
From: Harald Staub, staub at switch.ch
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 23:32:21 +0200
From: Philipp Sacha fai (at) blue-cable.net
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 07:25:30 +0200
From: Nicolas Courtel courtel at cena.fr
Date: 24 Aug 2004 10:59:27 +0200
From: Paul Nijjar pnijjar at utm.utoronto.ca
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 12:46:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oliver Eberlein
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 12:55:59 +0200
From: Gilbert Laycock g.laycock at mcs.le.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 14:08:04 +0100
From: Heiner Mudersbach, infos at fms-computer.com
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 20:14:17 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 17:34:48 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:48:47 +0200
From: Mike Horansky moho AT stanford.edu
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 17:03:36 -0700
From: Bernd Broermann, bernd at broermann.com
Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 09:13:05 +0200
From: Holger Levsen, hl at hbt.de
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 15:35:12 +0200
From: alexander zangerl az+fai@bond.edu.au
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 15:00:55 +1000
From: Haakon Humberset
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:23:15 +0200 (CEST)
From: anonymous
Date: Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 17:49:34 +0200
From: Daniel LEPRINCE calibre at edf.fr
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:08:47 +0200
From: Frédéric BOITEUX fboiteux at calistel.com
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 11:19:51 +0200
From: Olivier olivier at celia dot u-bordeaux1 dot fr
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2004 15:39:25 +0200
From: Jim Mintha j.t.mintha at uva.nl
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 00:09:27 +0200
From: Yaroslav Halchenko, fai at onerussian.com
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:49:11 -0500
From: Aaron T Porter
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:28:26 -0800
From: Gabriel ILLOUZ, Gabriel.Illouz at limsi.fr
Date:Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:30:36 +0100
From: Jordan Hrycaj jordan at mjh.teddy-net.com
Date: 20 Feb 2004 10:27:59 +0100
From: Arno Wagner wagner at tik.ee.ethz.ch
Date:Tue, 17 Feb 2004 18:23:46 +0100
From: Andrew Janke rotor at bic mni mcgill.ca
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:28:14 -0500
From: anonymous
Date: 03 Feb 2004 18:09:42 +0100
From: Venkata venkata at cs.uno.edu
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 13:08:02 -0600
From: Henning Glawe glaweh at physik.fu-berlin.de
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 10:36:40 +0100
From: John Bazik jsb at cs.brown.edu
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 09:34:13 -0400
From: Guillaume Lederrey Gehel@LedCom.ch
Date: 11 Oct 2003 12:04:07 +0200
From: Ake.Sandgren@hpc2n.umu.se (Ake)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 11:54:11 +0200
From: Michal Svamberg svamberg@civ.zcu.cz
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 15:30:12 +0200 (CEST)
From: Jan Nabbefeld jan at sigterm dot de
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 19:05:35 +0200
From: Ulrike Nitzsche U.Nitzsche@ifw-dresden.de
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 12:31:36 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 15:21:36 -0500
From: Jacques Foury Jacques.Foury@math.u-bordeaux.fr
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 16:50:20 +0200
From: Ari Pollak ari@debian.org
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 09:13:34 -0400
From: Joerg Lehmann Joerg.Lehmann@Physik.Uni-Augsburg.DE
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 14:00:55 +0200
From: Souchon Yann
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 11:42:05 +0200
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:42:27 +0200
From: Andrew Agno
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 07:58:01 -0700
From: Jacob Weismann Poulsen jwp@dmi.dk
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 12:08:50 +0200
From: Arnaud Lauriou lauriou@enst.fr
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:39:16 +0200 (CEST)
From: Aurélien Gâteau
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 13:58:08 +0200
From: Ludwig Schwardt schwardt@sun.ac.za
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 10:37:21 +0200
From: Alex Pothaar a.pothaar@rc.rug.nl
Date: 23 Jul 2003 12:03:03 +0200
From: Daniel Myers dmyers@pomona.edu
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 20:04:55 -0400
From: Philipp Grau PHGRAU ZEDAT dot FU-BERLIN.DE
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:21:39 +0200
From: Joshua Moore J.MOORE @ DKFZ-HEIDELBERG dot=DE
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 16:55:28 +0200
From: Francois CONTAT FRANCOIS dot=CONTAT ==FR.TISCALI.COM
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 12:02:45 +0200
From: Stephane FRITSCH STEPHANE dot FRITSCH AT @RTE-FRANCE.COM
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 12:03:13 +0100
From: Niklaus Giger ngiger@mus.ch
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 21:38:55 +0200
From: Florent DEMURE florent_demure@yahoo.fr
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:17:02 +0100 (CET)
From: Susan G. Kleinmann SGK@@KLEINMANN dot=COM
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 12:14:23 -0500
From: Matthew Palmer mjp16@ieee.uow.edu.au
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 10:30:53 +1000 (EST)
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2024 09:37:47 +0000
Are you using the FAI.me build service? No How many hosts have you installed using fai? > 10.000 Which version of fai are you using? 6.0.5 Which version are you using as your install kernel? 6.7 from experimental Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? bare metal servers How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes, mostly Which drivers are missing? Sometimes we need the newest kernel and Nvidia drivers Do you manage your configuration space under version control? git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.9M, #100 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 10 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Manufacturer of Custom Server Solutions, Memorysolution GmbH
Additional comments: We are using the FAI boot environment for hardware tests on newly assembled servers without installing an OS. We use a special extended nfsroot including a lot of hardware testing tools and Nvidia drivers for GPUs. We boot the FAI system, then stress test the hardware components and write a detailed report of the tests. This includes the hardware inventory and a list of MAC addresses and all sorts of serial numbers and firmware versions.
From: Marco Ferrara
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2024 16:33:04 +0100
Are you using the FAI.me build service? No
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 2500+
Which version of fai are you using? 4.3.1 migrated to 5.10.3 last year and now I'm trying to update to 6.2.3
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
Debian Jessie with FAI 4.3.1
Ubuntu Focal with FAI 5.10.3
Ubuntu Noble with FAI 6.2.3
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? base servers installation
and full configuration using class, vm and metal
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): Yes
using FAI-CD: Yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 17 MB 3523 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 2455
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl
What is the business of your company/organisation? ISP in UK
From: anonymous, tinkster +AT+proton==me=
Date: Fri, 03 May 2024 03:39:07 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? New install, so far two in testing Which version of fai are you using? 6.2.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Base installation for all kinds of server-class machines, mix of VM & metal How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP): Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, git repo How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 560K, #110 How many files do you have in ../config/files? The default 11 for now What types of scripts are you using for local customization? None out of FAI at this stage, after a base install ansible takes over What is the business of your company/organisation? research network
Additional comments: We (intend to) use FAI for new server deployments/hardware replacmeent tasks. The reason I installed FAI is that our foreman installation fell in disrepair maybe a year before I joined the company, and proved to be too hard to reanimate or be replaced w/ a new version of foreman. And we're about to roll out a bunch of replacements for our entire perfsonar and out of band machine fleet.
From: Vimec.nl
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2024 17:18:56 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? not sure but 100+ Which version of fai are you using? the version that debian 10 (buster) provides 5.10.3~buster1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian 10 kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? customized server How do you boot your hosts? USB stick but I would like to use PXE, just never got around to it. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? I'm not sure it matters, but no ixpio and elotouch drivers are not installed (also not sure they should be) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, in a git repo along with a bunch of custom shell scripts How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 180 files, 5.8 Megabyte How many files do you have in ../config/files? 49 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash scripts What is the business of your company/organisation? Vimec Applied Vision Technology B.V., Inspection of Pharmaceutical Glass Packaging
Additional comments: We use FAI to create an 'initial ISO' for the base-installation of our server-systems.
From: anonymous, Sorbonne Université
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2024 13:15:28 +0200
Are you using the FAI.me build service? No How many hosts have you installed using fai? 50+ Which version of fai are you using? 6.2.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes and general-purpose servers How do you boot your hosts? via network, PXE+DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? n/a Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 7.4 MB, 494 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 410 files What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? research & education, Sorbonne Université
Additional comments: FAI does its job reliably and keeps things simple, great tool.
From: Service informatique IGE, university grenoble-alpes
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2024 17:00:59 +0200
Are you using the FAI.me build service? We don’t know this service ... How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 20, we just begin with FAI Which version of fai are you using? 6.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, laptop How do you boot your hosts? network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? Wifi, Nvidia cards Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (git) How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 832K, 151 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 11 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Research in environment, Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement
From: Ralf Aumüller
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2023 14:43:48 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 100+
Which version of fai are you using? 6.0.3+deb12u1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, servers
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): Yes
using FAI-CD: No
from USB stick: No
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
I use a separate config space for each distrib-Version.
Ubuntu 20.04 | 3.4M | 290 (including backups)
Ubuntu 22.04 | 2.2M | 212 (including backups)
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Mainly shell and some perl scripts
What is the business of your company/organisation? university, computer science
From: Robert Wooden
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2023 08:20:57 -0500
Are you using the FAI.me build service? yes
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Two, so far
Which version of fai are you using? 6.0.X
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Default Debian 12
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Headless Folding at Home (small farm)
How do you boot your hosts? Currently ISO image for VirtualBox. Soon via USB stick
Via USB stick on any other machines (not VM.)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Via ssh
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Via ssh
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 72k, #8
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 0
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? none
What is the business of your company/organisation? Personal use running Folding at Home studying Alzheimer's disease.
Additional comments:
Your “FAI.me / Build your own” allows me to build simple, headless, command line servers running some
custom SSD settings to reduce writes, Postfix, Unattended updates, Smartmontools, Lm-sensors, and Folding at Home
project software on a collection of various machines, more quickly saving my time. (I was so-o-o tired of answers all the
Debian install settings during the installation process.) I would be glad to help you in any way. I have been open source
based for about 25 years. Thank you.
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2023 09:48:50 +0000
Are you using the FAI.me build service? NO How many hosts have you installed using fai? more than 200 hundreds Which version of fai are you using? 5.8.4, Debian 10 default version Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? servers and desktop How do you boot your hosts? FAI-CD Which version are you using as your install kernel? default debian kernel (buster/bullseye/bookworm) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no issue Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes (git) How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? Iso is around 800mb (not talking about ansible post-install) How many files do you have in ../config/files? 319 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell and ansible post-install What is the business of your company/organisation? bank finance
From: Florent
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2023 13:49:35 +0200
Are you using the FAI.me build service? NO How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 30 We install our development machines with the iso file we created with FAI. Let's say about 30... For production only 3. Which version of fai are you using? 6.0.3 we use the debian bullseye packaged version. Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? servers How do you boot your hosts? We use FAI-CD to create an iso that we flash to a USB drive Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No harware problem for us, but once again we are only one seapath user with our specific hardware choices Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, see our git repo How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 204KB, 31 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 5 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? only basic shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Linux foundation project Seapath
Additional comments: Seapath uses FAI to "just" build an installation media with the needed software preinstalled (ceph, pacemaker, openvswitch, etc.). We do almost zero configuration, since we have many ansible playbooks to deal with that in a second step https://github.com/seapath/ansible/tree/debian-main. The only configuration we do is to add default credentials (users/ssh keys) and default networking, so that we can connect to the server directly after deployment. I have a video tutorial about this.
From: Henning Glawe, first.gla..@@mpsd@dot@mpg de
Date: Sun, 28 May 2023 12:44:28 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 173
Which version of fai are you using? 5.10.3
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 5.10.0-15-amd64
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
desktops: 1
laptops: 57
buildbot workers (CI for https://octopus-code.org, amd64 and ppc64el, some with nVidia GPGPU): 32
HPC nodes (amd64, some with nVidia Tesla nVlink): 43
Proxmox hypervisors: 3 active + 1 standby
NAT routers: 1
Syslog/monitoring servers: 2
File/backup servers: 10
web servers/buildbot masters: 6
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): almost all hosts
exceptions: ppc64el setup via D-I + fai softupdate
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, in git.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 7.2M, #502
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 341
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash, perl, python
What is the business of your company/organisation? Science/Research, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter
Additional comments:
Using FAI for all Linux installs for all servers and theory department laptops.
FAI softupdate is run frequently to update client configuration and package configuration.
Using both single-host ``ssh root@client fai softupdate`` and
fai-updater (https://github.com/glaweh/fai-updater) to broadcast fai softupdates.
Maybe also interesting for the $FAI/files statistics:
Number of file-modes: 83
Number of preinst scripts: 19
Number of postinst scripts: 34
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 11 May 2022 19:20:07 +0000
Are you using the FAI.me build service? Yes How many hosts have you installed using fai? one Which version of fai are you using? 5.10.3 FAI.me build Which version are you using as your install kernel? Kernel Linux: 5.16.0-0.bpo.4-amd64 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Home NAS @OpenZFS How do you boot your hosts? via USB stick Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell - bash What is the business of your company/organisation? Home NAS to gain some digital sovereignty.
Additional comments: The USB installation stick is mainly for disaster recovery of my openmediavault Home NAS, but also to help others get started.
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2022 15:33:12 +0100
Are you using the FAI.me build service? Yes (online build) How many hosts have you installed using fai? 10 Which version of fai are you using? 5.10.3 Which version are you using as your install kernel? 5.10.0-19-amd64 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Notebooks How do you boot your hosts? USB stick / Optical disk Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes - no specific hardware is required - I use mobile tethering for Internet Which drivers are missing? None Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 7KB, 6 Files What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation?No business. Personal project
Additional comments: A much needed tool in today's fast paced world. Fully automated installs make your life easier and productivity is greatly increased. Managed to install Linux on all the 10 devices in less than 10 minutes.
From: someone, @ ocado dot com
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2021 12:35:05 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Many thousands Which version of fai are you using? 5.x Which version are you using as your install kernel? Standard Debian Testing Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Data Centre and Edge compute How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Which drivers are missing? None Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1GB including basefiles How many files do you have in ../config/files? 40 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Puppet, Shell, Python What is the business of your company/organisation? Ocado Technology, a technology company
Additional comments: To automate data centre builds. I also want to take the opportunity to say thanks for all the work you do on the project. It has been a key part of our infra build solution for quite some years. I think the key to it's success for us is the flexibility.
From: Sinh Lam, first.last xxxxxxxx dot-com
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:01:53 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 10k+ - Previous employer deploys 10s of thousands of servers worldwide - current employer currently deploys 100s of "servers". Which version of fai are you using? 5.9.1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? current stock kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? - servers. Future plan is to use this to do desktop/notebook provisioning. How do you boot your hosts? PXE/DHCP Future plan to use FAI-CD/USB to do on-site maintenance deployments (basically re-provisioning servers on customer sites) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no Which drivers are missing? realtek wifi drivers Do you manage your configuration space under version control? everything in the config directory is version controlled using GIT How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 195M, # 102 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 37 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell. future plan includes incorporating salt/ansible to do customizations. What is the business of your company/organisation? Robotics
Additional comments: Due to past experience with FAI, it was almost imperative to bring FAI with me to my current employer. The introduction of FAI allowed the organization to provision/re-provision servers en-masse as well as reducing provisioning time from 2+hrs to ~ 5 minutes. The process has also been simplified so that anyone can perform this function.
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2021 12:46:12 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 14 Which version of fai are you using? 5.10.3 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Proxys Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian Kernel How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes it does Which drivers are missing? None How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 8.7 Mbytes What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Full IT-Service Company
From: Jan Novak, repcom at_gmail dot-com
Date: Tue, 18 May 2021 08:25:38 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? at this point only a view test server, in the future all new host in our system Are you using the FAI.me build service? Yes Which version of fai are you using? 5.10.1+3 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, web server, server How do you boot your hosts? Direct from ISO (VM's), in the future also from USB Stick Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? at the moment, yes! Which drivers are missing? non-free drivers are importing because of some special LAN drivers Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? using the FAI.me config space How many files do you have in ../config/files? see above What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? (sub) IT of a big printing company - kuhse.media
Additional comments: We are testing at the moment. Everything was a VM installation (proxmox)
From: anonymous
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2021 15:10:53 +0200
Are you using the FAI.me build service? no How many hosts have you installed using fai? hundreds (> 400) Which version of fai are you using? 5.9.4 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? industrial quality inspection systems. How do you boot your hosts? using FAI-CD from USB stick Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain debian 8 and debian 10 Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? not sure, I didn't notice anything missing Which drivers are missing? na. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 5MB , 154 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 145 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash + python. What is the business of your company/organisation? Industrial Automation
Additional comments: Our repo is 5MB , 154 files. The way we do this, is we run 'fai-setup' and overwrite anything that we store, by copying our repo-content into /srv/fai/config That way, we take the defaults, whatever they are, and change only what we need to the change.
From: Ondrej Jombik, ceo aatt platon dot net
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2020 04:00:42 +0100 (CET)
Are you using the FAI.me build service? No How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 150 (physical machines and VPS as well) Which version of fai are you using? 5.8.4 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Default Debian kernel 4.19 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Web servers, mail servers, virtualization servers How do you boot your hosts? Via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No Which drivers are missing? firmware-bnx2 Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.8M, 361 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 89 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, ansible What is the business of your company/organisation? web hosting, server administration, server housing Platon Technologies
Additional comments: Thanks for the work on the project. It provides a lot more possibilities than Debian preseed.cfg file. Especially setup-storage is an unparalleled tool for setting up even the most complex partitioning schemes, that involve LUKS, RAID and LVM at the same time. This is not possible in most other tools in a clean and understandable way.
From: Frank Morawietz
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2020 12:52:21 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? close to 20 (will increase over time) Which version of fai are you using? 5.9.4 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops (powerful scientific workstations) How do you boot your hosts? network/DHCP/PXE for installation, thereafter via UEFI local boot Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no Which drivers are missing? Nvidia graphics drivers (I know, not open source...) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 828Kbytes, 127 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 37 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash What is the business of your company/organisation? pharmaceutical research
Additional comments: Hosting own FAI installation server in a KVM virtual machine running Debian buster to install clients with openSUSE Leap.
From: Jan Hanten
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2020 00:26:13 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 20 Which version of fai are you using? 5.8 (buster repo) and 5.3 (stretch repo) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? epics control server (vms and real machines) Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debain stretch and plain debian buster How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? - Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, svn How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 328 MB How many files do you have in ../config/files? 140 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash, cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? research, Institut für Kernphysik, TU-Darmstadt
Additional comments: To install our control system servers for controlling the S-DALINAC
From: Frank Steinberg, last name at ibr.cs.tu-bs dot .de
Date: Wed, 27 May 2020 13:20:27 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? currently ~180, over the years >1000 Which version of fai are you using? 5.3 Which version are you using as your install kernel? 4.9.0 (Debian) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, servers, many types of VMs How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? in the past some drivers have been missing, now we are happy Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 12MB, 673 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 466 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? 99% shell What is the business of your company/organisation? TU Braunschweig
Additional comments: happy for a long time, no updates for a long time :-)
From: Alexandre Duplaix, Sagemcom
Date: Wed, 20 May 2020 06:21:49 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~ more than 3000 (prod) since 2015
Which version of fai are you using? now 5.9.3 for all, before : 4.3.2, 5.0.3, 5.8.4
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
3.13 (trusty), 4.13 (xenial), 4.19.0-8 (buster)
4.19.30 (ubuntu 12.04, 14.04 & 16.04)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops/servers (a lot of kind of servers)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): Yes
using FAI-CD: Yes (offshore partners with basefiles, squashfs & pakages via http)
from USB stick: Yes idem
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes most of time
Which drivers are missing? HardDisk/SSD/M2 mainly. Some problems with network cards also with
Debian and Dell 5300 desktop for exemple but the last debian buster kernel has fixed the problem.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? > 600MB (12 files rebuilt via mk-basefiles), ~700 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? ~ 350
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell only
What is the business of your company/organisation? box decoder, wifi router, meter.., Sagemcom
Additional comments:
FAI is a very powerful software, thank you very much for your work, we hope it will get the success it deserves.
From: Mike Gabriel, sunweaver === debian dot=org
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2020 08:56:14 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? All devices at a grammar school about 150 devices. Which version of fai are you using? 5.8.4 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? notebooks, x86-tablets (in prep). Are you using the FAI.me build service? No. How do you boot your hosts? PXE+DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? So far, all drivers are recognized. Most devices are thinkpads. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Nope. But we should. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 620K, 98 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 10 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? In FAI itself, bash scripts. Later with puppet What is the business of your company/organisation? DAS-NETZWERKTEAM, FAI is used on a customer size (Katharineum zu Lübeck, a grammar school).
Additional comments: After the systems have been installed management is continued with puppet. The puppet agent is bootstrapped via FAI on initial setup of the devices. I am currently discussing with the Debian Edu developers to ship FAI as an additional official pathway for installing Debian Edu machines on site. The advantage over the current method (netinst Debian Installer) is the customizability of the to be installed machines. At that customer we don't deploy vanilla Debian Edu machines. Our systems have a set of packages as overlay that tweaks the systems even further than done by Debian Edu.
From: Bruce Allen, Alexander Post, Henning Fehrmann, Carsten Aulbert, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2020 11:08:35 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Currently more than 3000 hosts (mostly physical, 10-15 VM), over
the past ~12 years, we certainly used fai certainly way more than 10000 times to install machines.
Which version of fai are you using? Currently migrating from 5.3.6/jessie to 5.9.1/buster
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian, usually from backports
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? we only have servers/compute nodes
but with the exception of the fai server itself, more then 99.9% of
the machines are fai installed. Maybe we will fai.me the fai server.
How do you boot your hosts? First via network/DHCP/PXE (still no UEFI) for installation, then via localboot.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Usually yes, if not we go for the backports kernel.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, everything in there is in git (as well as /etc/fai)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 205 files summing up to less than 1 MByte
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 27
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? saltstack
What is the business of your company/organisation? fundamental research, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Are you using the FAI.me build service?
As a trial/template for a few virtual machines.
Additional comments:
fai is nowadays only used for the bare minimum installation, after the
first reboot our saltstack configuration takes over, i.e. we never use
fai softupdate
Rarely, we use it as a live boot environment
More hosts will com soon:
44 hosts each 8 V100 or RTX 2070Super GPUs and
444 hosts each 2x32 Core AMD Ryzen2 and 512 GB RAM :)
List of Atlas compute nodes
From: anonymous, high school in Bavaria
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2020 20:42:23 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~100 Which version of fai are you using? 5.8.4 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops How do you boot your hosts? via network Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 593M How many files do you have in ../config/files? 150 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? education, high school in Germany, Bavaria
Additional comments: Thank you A LOT for developing fai! Even more thanks for your support!
From: Jean-mathieu CHANTREIN, pre.post@ univ minus angers dot.fr
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:44:27 +0100 (CET)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 80 Which version of fai are you using? 5.8.4 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes and some server Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Which drivers are missing? No drivers missing Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, with git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 93M, #89 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 13 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Ansible What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, Leria, University of Angers
Additional comments: I install minimal debian stable server with fai, rolling out ssh keys and python-apt package for the hosts. I customize installation with ansible via ssh after first reboot after installation. Thanks a lot for your great work since 20 years. FAI is very useful.
From: Steffen Grunewald, AEI Golm
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:29:39 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? more than 1500
Over the years (since 2004, to be exact) there have been multiple generations
of HTC clusters. I'll give the number of compute nodes, but there have been
FAI installs of headnodes, storage, data-exchange and web servers as well, not
counting many tiems where FAI's sysinfo has been used to diagnose machines:
* a 10 node Alpha cluster (I think back then I was the first to "port" FAI to another arch, codename AlFAI)
* a 180+x node Dual-Athlon MP cluster ("Merlin", started with RedHat, converted to Debian and FAI on 2004, up until 2007)
* a 626+x node AMD Opteron cluster ("Morgane", 2007-2014)
* a 478 node Intel Haswell cluster ("Vulcan", 2013-, assimilated by...)
* a 262 node AMD Epyc/Naples cluster ("Hypatia", 2019-)
Which version of fai are you using? usually the latest stable
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian stock kernel
We had started with custom kernels 15 years ago but have been using "stock"
Debian kernels for many years now.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cluster nodes, storage servers, machines for data transfer within the
LIGO/VIRGO/KAGRA Scientific Collaboration (ofter referred to as "LSC")
How do you boot your hosts? PXE, both Legacy and UEFI. (15 years back, Alphas were net-booted by hand.)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? For many years now, the Debian kernel covers all our hardware driver needs.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (git)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? ~ 9 MB in ~ 900 files.
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 700+
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash, cfengine (and very few perl)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Basic research, very non-profit (you cannot sell gravitational waves)
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Additional comments:
I'm aware that IT support has been experimenting with FAI for some time.
They never got as far as our Department (Astrophysical and Cosmological
Relativity).
Some info about the clusters
Former cluster called Merlin
Old Alpha cluster in 2003
See also the ATLAS cluster
From: Nicolas Renault, nicolas =a=dot= renault +at+ openevents. fr
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 14:29:00 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3000 Which version of fai are you using? 5.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? multiple - vmlinuz-4.18.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 - vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-amd64 - vmlinuz-centos-7 - vmlinuz-rhel-7.2 (5.9,6.5,6.6,6.7 ) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktop (ubuntu 16.04 / 18.04 ) / server (all type of) debian / RH / Centos How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no have to use 4.18 on lenovo M720s Which drivers are missing? nvme SSD Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 383 Mb / 310 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 141 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? IT service OPENevents
Additional comments: FAI used internaly and on client IT, used on 80 sites to install desktop or production PC and server (ldap/samba/fw/WiFi captive portal/database/... )
From: fai-support = lihas +.de, Adrian Reyer
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2019 14:12:51 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 220 Which version of fai are you using? latest version Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, web server How do you boot your hosts? DHCP, PXE, iPXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 14MB, #1732 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 276 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? LiHAS - LinuxHaus Stuttgart
Additional comments: We use FAI in different installations to - deploy new servers and server clusters for customers - deploy and update many similar clients for single customers, e.g. vpn-routers, workstations, ...
From: anonymous
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2019 23:12:09 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Likely over 600 Which version of fai are you using? Currently 5.7.4, previously 5.3.6, and before that 4.3.1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Web server, mail server, thin client, workstation How do you boot your hosts? Custom USB stick with both EFI and BIOS mode Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Which drivers are missing? N/A Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, subversion. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 880K, 30 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 30 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Bash/shell, PERL What is the business of your company/organisation? Aerospace
Additional comments: FAI is a great tool that save me a lot of time.
From: Volker Epting, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2019 09:30:41 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~300
Which version of fai are you using? Several versions comming from the debian repos.
At the moment jessie and stretch.
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Always a plain debian kernel, sometimes from backports
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, servers, simulation machines, virtual machines, embedded systems
How do you boot your hosts? DHCP, PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? Sometimes network or raid controller drivers
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, with git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 16MB, unfortunately with some small software in it, 203 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 109 files
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine, python
What is the business of your company/organisation? Research: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE)
Additional comments:
For each distro a specific fai server is used.
fai is positive because it is using existing tools that are stable and well known.
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2018 11:54:56 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~120 Which version of fai are you using? 5.7, 3.4 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian 4.0.9 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? compute servers (HPC cluster) How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP): PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? no Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, Git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 268K, 61 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 13 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? research group of a large electronics company
From: Reiner Schulz, R.lastname=dvz-mv.de
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2018 08:34:17 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 300 Which version of fai are you using? 5.3.6 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian 8 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Server as Web, mail, database with mysql, Postgresql, mariadb, Applicationserver with tomcat, jboss How do you boot your hosts? depends of network segment, most with DHCP an PXE, some with FAI-CD Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Virtual machines yes, some type of physical needs its own boot kernel (Fibrechannel, RAID) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.1 G, #6396 How many files do you have in ../config/files? #5270 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Local government data center of Meckenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, DVZ Datenverarbeitungszentrum Mecklenburg-Vorpommern GmbH
From: Marc SCHAEFER, lastname @@alphanet .dot=ch
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2018 13:58:05 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~100 uniqe, multiple: > 1000 (reinstalling every year some things)
Which version of fai are you using? 4.3.1+deb8u1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? generated with FAI
vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-amd64 (PC, apu2, server)
vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-486 (less and less alix)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, embedded systems, server (file, web, firewall, ...)
How do you boot your hosts? via network PXE && DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? sometimes issues with NVidia GFX cards on desktops
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, before CVS, currently SVN, soon GIT
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.1M, 125 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 40
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine, sometimes perl
What is the business of your company/organisation? free software consulting, embedded systems, security, CRIL
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2018 12:16:02 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~20 Which version of fai are you using? 4.3.1+deb8u1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain debian kernel 3.16 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers and Desktop How do you boot your hosts? PXE boot Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No Which drivers are missing? ql2400_fw.bin Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Using git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.4Mb, 237 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 180 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Government
Additional comments: I install the same basic installation with FAI, rolling out ssh keys for the hosts. Rest of installation with ansible via ssh after first reboot after installation.
From: Sylvain MILOT, first@bic mni dot .mcgill .ca
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2018 22:49:23 -0400 (EDT)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 275
~200 Clients (bare-metal Workstations and virtual machines)
~75 Servers (bare-metal Servers and some virtual machines)
Which version of fai are you using? 4.3.1+wheezy1 and 5.3.6~bpo8+1 ... migrating to 5.7
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
debian 3.16 with FAI 4.3.1+wheezy1
custom build kernel 4.12 with FAI 5.3.6~bpo8+1
custom build kernel 4.14 with FAI 5.7
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes for grid computing
servers: web, dns, mail, storage
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP);
via USB stick;
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes otherwise kernel is upgraded;
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no but I should.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 18M, 3332 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 3001
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine;
What is the business of your company/organisation? scientific research - https://www.mcgill.ca/bic/
Additional comments:
We've been using FAI since 2005, starting with Debian Sarge. FAI's
high level of customization makes it a very useful provisioning tool.
We use FAI as a first stage provisioning step and use other
configuration management tools like cfengine to complete installation.
From: Markus Lindberg
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 08:30:38 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
~1000 Clients (Workstations, Laptops and virtual machines)
~800 Servers (Virtual machines and bare-metal)
Which version of fai are you using? 5.6
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian stable kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops for RnD, servers for infrastructure
How do you boot your hosts? Via network PXE, TFTP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Currently, yes. Though we have had to install the backports
kernel at some point to allow network adapter drivers to work for some HP laptops.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, we used to have it under svn,
but it has been migrated to Git instead.
How big is your config space (4,9M, #336)? 4.9M, 336
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 61
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell (sh/bash)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Information Technology
Additional comments:
We have used FAI for many years in our organization and always been happy with
the high and low level of customization available to us. We only use FAI
for provisioning and let CFEngine take over the configuration management of the hosts
after the installation is done.
We use FAI for almost all Debian/Ubuntu installations we perform. We save a lot of
time by utilizing FAI.
Average desktop installation time:
SSD ~9,5 minutes
RAID1 HDD ~21,5 minutes
Average virtual server installation time:
SSD ~2,8 minutes
From: Maximilian Stein, ms X alarm minus dispatcher de
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 19:54:03 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 50
Which version of fai are you using? 5.3.6 Debian stretch
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain stretch kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? web/mail/file/vpn, server, notebooks, embedded devices
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): X
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick: X
custom USB stick for EFI: X
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 7 MB, 914 files (flat, without history)
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 681
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, python
What is the business of your company/organisation? alarm systems for firefighters, Alarm Dispatcher Systems GmbH
Additional comments:
First, we are using FAI to setup and update our server infrastructure and laptops.
Moreover, we also use it to setup and manage the embedded devices shipped to our customers.
This is especially useful to manage the customer configuration.
From: 朴文学, piao100101 gmailcom
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 18:11:46 +0900
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20 Which version of fai are you using? 5.3.4 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cloud Cluster node Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian 3.16 kernel How do you boot your hosts via network PXE and using FAI-CD from USB Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No How big is your config space? 372MB How many files do you have in ../config/files? 20 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, python What is the business of your company/organisation? Konkuk University in korea
Additional comments: It is great project that user can custom hook for installation I think fai need web page to monitoring all installed hosts and process of installation
From: Jörg Striewski, last.at.ismll.de
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 11:13:48 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 76 Which version of fai are you using? 5.5 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes (execution hosts) Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel How do you boot your hosts : via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware : Yes Which drivers are missing : none a.t.m. Do you manage your configuration space under version control : No How big is your config space : 52K, 43 files How many files do you have in ../config/files : 17 What is the business of your company/organisation? research and teaching, University of Hildesheim
Additional comments: Our submission host (master-node) of the cluster is an Ubuntu Xenial server with fai 5.5. The execution hosts (compute-nodes) are all installed with fai
From: Christian Meyer, c 2 h 5 o h @ web dot=de
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 01:17:40 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~60
Which version of fai are you using? 5.3.6 (Debian stable)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? mostly Desktop and notebook PCs but VMs and Servers, too
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 4.9.0-4-amd64 (Debian stable)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE): with PXELinux (from Windows DC) and
NFSROOT (and apt-cacher-ng) on my faiserver.
using FAI-CD: from USB pen drive / ISO
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Mostly.
I have plenty of old hardware and added non-free drivers to my NFSROOT.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No, I just do weekly backups.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2.1 Mbytes, 191 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 126 files
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education: school
Additional comments:
I integrated my Debian boxes into the existing Windows AD.
So I put some LDAP, Kerberos and Samba things into my NFSROOT.
CONFIGspace contains lots of integration scripts, too.
(like Authentication, Proxy, Shares, Printers, ...)
From: Andrew Ruthven, first.last ==a=t catalyst.net.nz
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2018 10:40:31 +1300
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Well over 600 (this is based
on how log directories we currently have on our primary build servers)
Which version of fai are you using? 5.5 & 5.1.2
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, laptops, cloud nodes (compute, storage, control plane, etc),
general servers
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Backported kernel for both Jessie and Stretch nfsroots.
Jessie = 3.16.x and Stretch = 4.13.x.
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): PXE, DHCP
using FAI-CD: sometimes for remote servers
from USB stick: no
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing?
No, newer servers tend to miss either the network or RAID cards, the
backport kernel typically works. We have occasionally had to add a
kernel module to the initrd image to be loaded.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, git and git-annex for basefiles.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 18MB, 3,885 files.
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 276
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, Perl.
We've implemented some of the common cfengine operations
in Perl, so use that in preference. We use FAI to get the base system
installed and enough software installed and configured to then hand
over to Puppet or Ansible for final setup and on-going maintenance.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Catalyst IT Ltd
Additional comments:
We use FAI to allow repeatable, automated builds of servers and
workstations. We have a training room, and all the PCs in that room are
rebuilt multiple times a week with FAI.
To aid with remote builds we have also developed software to allow both
remote builds of servers using the BMC via ssh or IPMI and also
building KVM guests using the serial console.
From: Mark Devaney
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2017 08:11:44 -0600
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approx 200 Which version of fai are you using? 5.3 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? subversion How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 350K How many files do you have in ../config/files? ~40 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? finance
From: TUXEDO Computers GmbH, tux aT companyname .com
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2017 12:09:32 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? We don't count them but it must be tenthousands literally.
Per day there are ca. 30 installations via WebFAI solely.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Laptops, Desktops, small Mini-PCs
Which version of fai are you using? We use three different versions: 4.0.8, 5.3.6 and 5.4.
Which version are you using as your install kernel? We are running the plain Debian kernel.
How do you boot your hosts? Internally we use USB sticks for local FAI usage.
We're handing out special USB sticks with every ordered laptop to enable customers using WebFAI.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
FAI 4.X -> No. One special ethernet device is not recognized because of missing drivers. FAI 5.x solves this.
FAI 5.x -> Yes.
Which drivers are missing? None a.t.m.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 12 GB
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 190 files.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? We're using some BASH scripts to customize FAI for our deployed systems.
What is the business of your company/organisation? We produce custom-tailored Linux hardware, laptops and PCs. TUXEDO Computers
Additional comments:
We have a demo video for WebFAI, the system our customers can use:
Download including two pictures here: https://mytuxedo.de/index.php/s/SbldjJVTbrXDNoz/download
From: Russell Currie, University of Cambridge
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 09:17:05 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approx. 200 Which version of fai are you using? 5.1.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops How do you boot your hosts? Network - DHCP/iPXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, we now use git. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 300K, 30 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 14 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash scipts What is the business of your company/organisation? Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Additional comments: We have been using FAI for X years and currently have approx 200 workstations running that have been installed with FAI. We're currently using FAI to partition and install Ubuntu Xenial on workstations. FAI puts in place a systemd service that hands over to ansible for configuration after a restart. We're then able to manage the configuration on our workstations through ansible. The hardware is fairly varied and FAI copes gracefully with this.
From: Bill MacAllister, bill at ca-zephyr dot OORRGG
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2017 14:46:54 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~30 I expect this number to grow considerably.
In the end it will likely be 300-600 hosts.
Which version of fai are you using? 5.3.2-0~6669~ubuntu16.04.1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian Stretch 4.4.0-70-generic
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers: ldap, dhcp, dns, web
How do you boot your hosts? PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes. Managed with git, deployed with chef
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 692K, 114
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 24
What types of scripts are you using for local customization?
shell, perl for FAI customization
chef when system is built
What is the business of your company/organisation? file hosting/sharing web service
Additional comments:
I work on supporting internal Linux systems. I wanted a better way to install Linux systems
so I installed FAI. We have sites at remote locations and I am in
the process of bringing up local FAI servers for our remote sites.
From: Matthias, Computer Science Department of TU Darmstadt
Date: Tue, 16 May 2017 16:29:28 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? > 100
Which version of fai are you using? 4.3.2+wheezy1 and 5.3.6
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel wheezy, jessie, stretch
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? currently VMs only
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): PXE / DHCP
using FAI-CD: -
from USB stick: -
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? No problems, on the other hand I mainly have VMs...
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet, git ist planned.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1,2MB in 101 files
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Some shell scripting, puppet
What is the business of your company/organisation? education,
Computer Science Department of TU Darmstadt
Infrastructure and Students Pool service
From: Michael Koeberle
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:14:34 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~30 Which version of fai are you using? 5.1.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops and servers How do you boot your hosts? PXE, USB-Stick Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yep Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 856k, #124 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 26 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash What is the business of your company/organisation? Educational
From:Ian Kelling, firstname @ == iankelling == dot = org
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2017 08:34:49 -0800
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5 Which version of fai are you using? 5.3.3~bpo8+2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? stock kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktop, notebooks, VMs How do you boot your hosts? pxe, and pxe-kexec Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, in git. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 436k, #94 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 24 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash What is the business of your company/organisation? none
Additional comments: I publish the configuration space and related scripts: https://iankelling.org/git/?p=ian-specific/automated-distro-installer;a=summary People who use fai may find these things as useful examples: it uses dnsmasq (on a openwrt machine) for dhcp instead of the isc dhcp. fai-wrapper is a small script to use basic fai classes outside of fai. It does not use the fai partitioning tool, but the script is inspired from it and works outside of fai. Features people may find useful: installs encrypted trisquel belanos, debian jessie, debian stretch, ubuntu 16.04, and arch (havne't done recently, probably a bit broken), in a multi-boot setup using multiple subvolumes of a single btrfs filesystem. Utilizes multiple disks, with scripts to automatically decrypt on intentional reboots, but not after shutdown or power loss.
From: René Bleisch, lastname climate =at= unibe dot TLD for schweiz
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2017 16:03:56 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 30 Which version of fai are you using? 5.3.3 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian jessie Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Linux workstations How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, svn How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 570M, 745 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 207 files What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl What is the business of your company/organisation? University, Climate and Environmental Physics Group, Univ. Bern
Additional comments: I use it to install all workstations of our Linux network, because its very easy and fast to do lots of installations.
From: Brian Kroth bp+lastname a t engr d o t .wisc.edu
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2016 09:28:46 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~300 VMs and growing, ~100 Workstations Which version of fai are you using? Currently 4.3.2+wheezy1, though I'm excited to try out the new FAI with cloud disk image support. Which version are you using as your install kernel? Generally the kernel from stable backports (eg: wheezy-backports) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktop workstations for labs, a few physical machines including some critical servers and cluster machines, and lots of different types of server VMs (eg: dns, dhcp, ldap, nfs, syslog, mysql, memcached, mongodb, apache, squid, sendmail, etc.). How do you boot your hosts? PXE and DHCP, though no fai-chboot - we have custom rolled scripts around FAI to support multiple nfsroots and a menu to select one of the various Debian flavors we're currently supporting and our own auto install script and pxelinux conf variant since our DHCP server is also somewhat custom. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Generally, though that's usually why we use the backports kernel as well. Which drivers are missing? Lately, the latest intel ethernet drivers. We also need to provide our own nvidia drivers for quatro cards that the lab machines require for custom engineering software. Historically we also provided afs and vmware drivers, but we've dropped the former, and the latter has been included in the mainline kernel for a number of years now. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes. It's in git now along with the rest our cfengine config and file artifacts. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? How many files do you have in ../config/files? Not very large. Most of the work goes into disk_configs and package_config files. The rest has been largely dumbed down now to simply running cfengine (which also controls our FAI servers - turtles all the way down). What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Mostly just a few shell scripts and one major perl one that parses the cfengine inputs to determine the classes for the machine and represent them as FAI classes so we don't need to maintain two sets of class based infrastructures. What is the business of your company/organisation? Computer Aided Engineering Center at the College of Engineering at UW-Madison
Additional comments: We use FAI to fairly rapidly (~10-15 minutes) spin up new VMs to do pivoted service upgrades, on demand expansions to accommodate service growth need, and roll out lab machines. In particular, this helped us quickly address an spike in usage a couple of years ago by allowing us to quickly more than triple the amount of VM resources configured to serve an application when a snow storm unexpectedly caused a number of large classes to move their final exams to an online format using the UW-Madison campus wide Moodle install that we host. As for my comments/suggestions - I think one of the best pieces of FAI and reason to use it over preseeding or some other system is the disk_config system. It'd be really great to see continued work on that and in particular some more support for different btrfs layouts (eg: nested subvolume layouts to support rollback of package updates). It seems to be one of the building blocks that many container solutions would like to use (systemd or docker) and having the ability to use FAI to build those container images in a scripted and repeatable fashion is still very attractive. Thanks much for the hard work over the years (been using it since at least 2007).
From: Guglielmi Matteo, lastname.firstname @ epfl.ch
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2016 16:56:05 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 300 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 and 5.1.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.3 GB, #1315 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 1092 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl What is the business of your company/organisation? University, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Additional comments: Additional scripts which extend FAI Unattended First Boot Install Pictures of the SuperB Cluster Confederation
From: anonymous at kaneo-gmbh.de
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:19:38 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 50 servers and 15 desktops/notebooks Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, notebooks, all server nodes Which version of fai are you using? 5.0.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel How do you boot your hosts? Over PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes it does Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, using SVN How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? around 10-15 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell and cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? IT service for medium sized companies, kaneo GmbH - green IT solutions
Additional comments: Thanks for all the time we saved with this project! :) Great project, thank you! We have a default setup for all our servers, so there are only a few config files.
From: Andrew Bezella, aLASTNAME =at= archive.org
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 13:52:21 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 1197 bare-metal
hosts. In addition, we have about 800 ganeti-managed kvm instances
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? bare-metal servers and virtual machines
Which version of fai are you using? currently migrating from 3.4.8ubuntu5 to 5.0.3
Which version are you using as your install kernel? linux-image-4.4.6-fai-amd64
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): Y
using FAI-CD: N
from USB stick: N
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? N/A
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 668K, #107
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 11
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell; currently migrating from cfengine to ansible
What is the business of your company/organisation? non-profit, digital library, Internet Archive
Additional comments:
1197 bare-metal hosts have uploaded their logs to our fai server. many
of these have been reinstalled multiple times and we also use the fai
nfsroot for diagnostics (looks like about 10000 logged uses of fai).
in addition, we have about 800 ganeti-managed kvm instances that have
been installed (again, in many cases multiple times) with fai.
FAI is used to partition and lay down a base operating system, then cfg mgmt takes over.
love that it's flexible enough to do chroot/dirinstalls for our
ganeti-managed kvms. nice to have a single installer for both.
From: anonymous
Date: Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 11:16:23 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Only 4 (but it could increase significantly
if I decide to switch all my servers and/or my clusters from RocksCluster to FAI).
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Performance workstations (hundreds of RAM Gb / 64 cores...).
Which version of fai are you using? 5.0
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Ubuntu 14.04
How do you boot your hosts? PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (git)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 508K, #85
How many files do you have in ../config/files? #11
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Just a shell hook for this moment
What is the business of your company/organisation? Research in the fields of species evolution, environment, ecology, France
Additional comments:
I am using FAI with SaltStack to install new machines. We have some customers who
book some performing machines and we reinstall these ones with FAI between each
schedule. We did that with VM before but had some performance issues.
From: Bruce Merry
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 10:34:49 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 1 so far, 20-30 in future Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers Which version of fai are you using? 5.0 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel How do you boot your hosts? using FAI-CD Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 464K, 74 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 11 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? radio astronomy, SKA South Africa
Additional comments: We're using Ubuntu 14.04, which FAI seems to support reasonably well, but I had to make a few tweaks. On the plus side, the flexibility of FAI turned out to be very useful, even though it was a bit of a learning curve. I was also able to customise things so that the entire installation is done with one command from my laptop through the remote access controller (iDRAC) on the server.
From: Jens Schmidt, lastn ame at iils .de
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 18:15:36 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20 (3 bare Iron + 9 kvm guests + 8 desktop clients)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Firewall, KVM Server, Samba 4 AD, Jenkins Build Server, Gerrit Server,
Apache Web Server, Desktops, everything! :-)
Which version of fai are you using? 5.0.1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian Jessie kernel
How do you boot your hosts?
PXE, DHCP, bootmenu with:
Local Boot
FAI
Debian Netboot Installer
Windows7Sp1
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 740K, #184
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 60
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? IILS Ingenieurgesellschaft für Intelligente Lösungen und Systeme mbH
Mostly developement of the design compiler 43 and engineering services
Additional comments:
fai makes life easier
From: Lisa Marie Maginnis, l i s a m = f sf = o r g
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2015 00:51:31 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 50+
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Everything: Workstations, laptops,
as well as physical and virtual servers
Which version of fai are you using? 3.4
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 4.2
How do you boot your hosts? PXE, USB Stick, and FAI-CD (for some VMs)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, in git.
Our configs can be found here: https://vcs.fsf.org/?p=fai-configs.git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 836K / 121 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 29
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? cfengine2
What is the business of your company/organisation? Free Software Foundation, gnu.org
Additional comments:
FAI-Project is an awesome project, please keep up the great work :)
We started using FAI in 2014 to speed up our deployments and minor upgrades
(softupdate). Since then, our deployment time has gone down from 1.5hours per
host to 15mins per host. This saves our organization a lot of SysAdmin time
and resources, allowing us to be more effective instead of waiting on long
manual builds.
From: Wolfgang Hotwagner, www.toscom.at
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 17:50:36 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 150+ Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? firewalls, cluster nodes, web server, mail server, monitoring server Which version of fai are you using? 5.0 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? Nothing. Its perfect Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 960K / 84 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 25 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, puppet What is the business of your company/organisation? Open source company, Toscom
Additional comments: We are deploying all kind of linux-servers using fai for many years Our PXE menu:
From: Neelesh Gurjar, neel dot last name gmail com
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2015 21:36:19 +0530
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5 hosts and more than 40 VMs
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Proxmox on top of Debian for Cloud Provisioning, Web Sever
Which version of fai are you using? 4.2
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel (3.16) from Debian 7
How do you boot your hosts? Network PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Till now no issue I faced with hardware detection.
However I have not much used fai ISO directly.
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? Linux Server consultant. My technical blog
Additional comments:
I liked FAI project mainly because of support by IRC or email. Which is really nice. Good work ! keep it up!!
From: Ricardo Branco Pinto
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 17:00:37 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Hundreds of them, literally. Be it on virtual machines (VirtualBox, Proxmox) or real hardware. Which version of fai are you using? Currently we're using FAI 4.3.3 but we've been using it since 3.x Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, virtual machines and appliances. Which version are you using as your install kernel? Currently Ubuntu 14.04 (using 3.19 kernel from Vivid), but recently Debian 8 and Debian 7 (in both cases, using kernel from backports to support Docker on the final image). How do you boot your hosts? FAI-CD for production, PXE for testing. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. Which drivers are missing? Currently none. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, git. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 158M. 267 files. How many files do you have in ../config/files? 118. What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell, Perl, Python, Expect. What is the business of your company/organisation? Electronic voting systems
Additional comments: We use FAI to automate the installation. We use the latest kernel available via apt-get/aptitude just to support Docker, and we add the firmware packages to the NFSROOT.
From: Christian Meyer, c 2 h 5 o h @ web dot=de
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 19:00:06 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 4-6, more planned.
Which version of fai are you using? 4.3.1+deb8u1 (Debian stable)
Which version are you using as your install kernel? linux-image-3.16.0-4-amd64 (plain Debian stable)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
Desktop and notebook PCs (providing non-GUI, GNOME or LXDE)
and my FAI-Server (including apt-cacher-ng)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): not yet (not in control of DHCP server)
using FAI-CD: to create DVDs and bootable USB pendrive
from USB stick: mostly used, dd-ing from fai-cd.iso
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Mostly.
I didn't try too much yet. Have tons of old hardware here.
Which drivers are missing? None at the moment,
but I included non-free firmware in my NFSROOT.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 440 k, 64
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 18
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell (with one perl line)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education: school
Additional comments:
Because I want to do some user interaction with a Windows AD I had to
put procinfo, ldap-utils, krb5-user, dialog, locales, console-setup
and keyboard-configuration into my NFSROOT - and whois for mkpasswd.
Installing Debian machines with FAI is a spare-time project of me and
it still is a long way to go:
My school runs a Windows Active Directory with Win 7 Clients. I'm not
too happy with that but it's not my job to change that.
My initially idea was to reuse old computers (formerly driven with XP
and not able to run Win 7) with a more modern, secure and ressource
friendly desktop.
After some trial and error and cleaning up the FAI_CONFIG_SRC FAI works
fine now. (Or: NOW I know FAI good enough to make it run with my own
classes and config).
My goal is to seamlessly integrate the Debian machines into the given
domain environment with samba file shares, printers and http-proxy. So
I'm now taking care of the AD-related stuff and reading 'tons of'
HowTo's and manpages about LDAP (done), Samba (work), PAM (work),
Kerberos (todo), Aufs (todo) and so on.
From: Bruno Kleinert, name1.name2 at informatik.uni minus erlangen.de
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2015 17:05:47 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 2 at the moment. It varies depending on the number of employees and students. Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops Which version of fai are you using? 4.3.1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel How do you boot your hosts? Via network (BIOS and UEFI PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, we are using git. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 620Kb, 82 files. How many files do you have in ../config/files? 37 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? At the moment, only shell scripts. What is the business of your company/organisation? Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Informatik 3 (Rechnerarchitektur)
Additional comments: Thanks to FAI we could replace a historically grown pile of 25 year old shell scripts, perl and whatsoever programs that have become unmaintainable long time ago. Also, FAI saves us a lot of time to install new machines and we have a centralized configuration management for our computers.
From: Luke from brandwatch
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:03:31 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~50 (but we have around 400 servers that will gradually be re-installed with FAI)
Which version of fai are you using? 4.3.2
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Hbase cluster nodes, Solr nodes, Postgres servers, Kafka nodes.
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 3.16.0-0.bpo.4-amd64
How do you boot your hosts? DHCP, PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Everything, except for FusionIO cards
Which drivers are missing? FusionIO, but they are kernel specific and
only available via FusionIO with a support license
(so I would never expect them to be included!)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? We use git to manage puppet, which deploys the
FAI server role (including config and exec to make the nfsroot)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 504k, 116 files (it's small atm, will grow as we add more
server roles and split config space as needed)
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 9 files - I don't think we use this bit at all, yet.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell, perl and puppet.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Social Media Monitoring, Brandwatch
Additional comments:
The main benefits of using FAI for us, are:
- stop using horrible preseed / d-i (preseeding complex disk layouts is a major pita!)
- easily/quickly automate full installations
- allow loading of drivers for specific hardware during the install to allow it to be used straight after install
- allow easy use of hooks and scripts to custom the install as needed
From: Rikard Nordin, first.last at l i u dot .se
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 09:25:45 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~250 Which version of fai are you using? 4.0.8 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, web servers, database servers, generic server Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian (3.2.0-4), Mint/Ubuntu (3.13.0-49) and 3.16.0-0.bpo.4 How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No, but bpo-kernel does. Which drivers are missing? Dell Perc H730 Mini disk controller Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No, snapshots How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 159Mb, 505 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 300 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell (bash, tcsh), Python, gnu cfengine, What is the business of your company/organisation? University, Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University
Additional comments: To install and configure the linux environment
From: Steven Wend
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2015 08:55:58 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
Which version of fai are you using?
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Applicationserver (Java), Webserver (PHP),
Workstations for programmer (Java / PHP)
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Ubuntu 14.04LTS with 3.13.0-44-generic.
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP): PXE and DHCP but external ressources so no service via fai-server
We have also XEN domains using Pygrub booting initramfs and extracted kernel image.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes.
Which drivers are missing? None at the moment.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? We use git to manage the configurations.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 39M, 16 files for Debian 8, 14 files for Ubuntu 1404
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell and after reboot puppet.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Software development, medium-sized business in germany
Additional comments:
Good job Thomas!
From: Jan-Hendrik Zab, lastname == l3s=dot=.de
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 18:00:17 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 7. We have 7 servers installed with FAI at the moment, but every new server will be installed via FAI. Which version of fai are you using? 4.0.8~deb7u1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amd64 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All our server systems running CentOS 6/7, basically 95% of all our servers. How do you boot your hosts? Only via network, DHCP and PXE. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Which drivers are missing? None. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, git. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 580K, #143 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Web science research, L3S Research Center at the Leibniz Universität Hannover
Additional comments: At the moment we are only using shell scripts via FAI, but we are currently planning to install a configuration management tool to keep configurations updated. So far, we are considering salt and ansible.
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 15:43:02 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~600
Which version of fai are you using? 4.1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain debian, bpo, customized kernel for
virtualized environments
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, hypervisors
How do you boot your hosts? network via PXE, CD and USB stick
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing? Blade network interfaces, raid controllers
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN. The .svn dirs are copied, however :)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 704K, 97
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 33
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl
What is the business of your company/organisation? Healthcare
Additional comments:
Installing the software backend of our product: a distributed system.
From: Bernhard Glomm
Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 14:33:30 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 60 instances at kinemathek that run permanently
Many many more with short living projects just 5 to 10 virtual instances for tests
Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.8ubuntu5
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain ubuntu vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic on amd64 system
just now I'm working on setting up a second nfsroot to be able to install i686 kernel... kross fingers
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? server, cluster nodes, notebooks
- server, both virtual and metal
- storage cluster nodes
- got a profile for notebooks too
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): mostly
from USB stick: want to do that in near future
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? none
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 712K, 96
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 32
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell in config/scripts, Later I use cfengine3
What is the business of your company/organisation? film museum and a environmental research organisation
formerly www.kinemathek.de, now www.ecologic.eu
Additional comments:
installing production and test systems
To be honest I do not very much with fai, most important is the
individual formating and installing of different base systems. The
general configuration and installation of additional software, also
update/upgrade I do with cfengine3
From: Roland Dieterich, lastname mpipz dot mpg.de
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:48:18 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 80
Which version of fai are you using? 4.0.8
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
servers (virtual and physical), desktops, cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes (git)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 24M, 974 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 523
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine
What is the business of your company/organisation? science/research, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 10:07:43 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 100 on 1gbit network all at once (30 minutes total)
Which version of fai are you using? 4.1
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
plain Debian kernel with lustre,ofed(mellanox) modules
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? frontends, cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) with IPMI
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes (git)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 259M, mostly all in the files subdirectory
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 32
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, puppet, expect
What is the business of your company/organisation? High Performance Computing , HPC
Additional comments:
We have also an internal FAI install server with syslinux menu that
deploy frontends,nodes (centos,debian,redhat) entirely configured with
HPC clusters software (mpi, infiniband(mellanox/intel), lustre ecc ecc)
We use fai for deployment and puppet for tiny customization on all nodes
For large update we use fai softupdate. We use Fai sysinfo like rescue boot
From: Jurrie Overgoor, info == narrowxpres = nl
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 20:21:51 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 30+ and counting Which version of fai are you using? FAI 3.4.8ubuntu2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel (stable) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Digital signage systems How do you boot your hosts? From USB stick. I give the hostname at the Grub boot prompt, and Fai does the rest (by choosing the correct files and classes) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. I use a NDiS 125-L right now. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, Subversion How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 60 MB, #211 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 145 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell mainly, and some Perl. What is the business of your company/organisation? digital signage solution provider, narrowXpres.nl
Additional comments: I really like the fact that I can do an USB install and just give the hostname - then I can walk away. The client installs, reboots, synchronizes, and off it goes :)
From: Sven Schumacher, lastname tfd uni=minus=hannover dot=de
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 17:51:32 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? >50
Which version of fai are you using? 4.0.6
Which version are you using as your install kernel? linux-kernel-amd64 (debian)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Clusternodes, Workstation-PCs (dual boot), Servers
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): yes, all of them
using FAI-CD: no
from USB stick: no
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes, it does.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not at the moment, but in future: yes
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 516kB, #93
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 18
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell mainly
What is the business of your company/organisation? Higher Education, Institute of Turbomachinery and Fluid-Dynamics
From: Steffen Eichler, name1.name2 @ stayfriends.com
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:13:29 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 700+
Which version of fai are you using? live 3.4.7, migration to 4.0.7 ongoing.
Which version are you using as your install kernel? For squeeze installations 3.1.0-grml64.
For wheezy debian plain kernel.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All servers.
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no
Which drivers are missing? Network card drivers for actual servers.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes (subversion)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? squeeze 492K, #16
How many files do you have in ../config/files? squeeze #16
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? puppet
What is the business of your company/organisation? social network platform, StayFriends GmbH
Additional comments:
We are running a very basic setup to perform the basic partitioning
and minimal OS installation; the rest is managed by puppet.
From: Michael van Appeldorn
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:36:54 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~350 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers for web, mail, scality, proxy, storage, queue and monitoring How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes: SVN How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 28M, 346 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 209 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, expect What is the business of your company/organisation? social networking site
Additional comments: FAI saved us hundreds of hours for installation :)
From: Frank Steinberg
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2013 11:25:48 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approx. 200 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.8 (Ubuntu raring) Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Ubuntu Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktop PCs, various servers, virtual machines, cloud nodes How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? everything is fine, except for some nVidia trouble Do you manage your configuration space under version control? not yet How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3MB in 333 files (except files/opt) How many files do you have in ../config/files? 251 (plus 64000 files in files/opt which is rsynced by a script) What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash shell scripts What is the business of your company/organisation? research and higher education, TU Braunschweig, Institut für Betriebssysteme und Rechnerverbund
Additional comments: Meanwhile we use FAI for our Ubuntu 13.10 setup.
From: Andreas Sindermann, sinder ä thp döt uni-koeln de
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 11:00:10 +0200 (MEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 75 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.8ubuntu2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? 3.2.0-32-generic-pae Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktop machines, no servers How do you boot your hosts? PXE+DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 54M, 111 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 59 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? mostly shell, very little cfengine/perl What is the business of your company/organisation? Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne
Additional comments: We are buying standard hardware with nvidia based graphics adapter (not too new) so no driver issues occur.
From: Nils Schroeder nils dotschroeder =cewecol o r dotde>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 14:39:52 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 50 to 100. 200 as of Nov 2014.
We install all our new servers since 2 years with fai.
Which version of fai are you using? 4.0.6
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All kind of webservers and application servers
(frontend and backend) for our dc. We have a few standard plattformprofiles we use to install with fai.
So OS, users, monitoring and some site specific stuff is in place. We use these installed hosts as a
start point to install the actual services. For our big platforms we have FAI profiles as well.
How do you boot your hosts? PXE boot, dhcp server gives hostnames and IPs by preconfigured mac adresses.
New Hostname decides which classes fai shoud install.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes, though we had some trouble with one raid card.
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No,
it is not volatile enough and only one person is managing changes. So we do not see any need for versioncontrol.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3,3 MB and 47 Scripts.
Only scripts and a few binarys (mostly for custom monitoring).
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 5
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell (bash) and python
What is the business of your company/organisation? We are europes leading photofinisher CEWE COLOR AG.
You can buy out products at our business partners like DM, Müller, Amazon and a lot more.
Additional comments:
Doing the base install of our new servers for our datacenter.
From: Steve Jahl, j a h l csail dot mit,edu
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2013 11:14:38 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Several hundred
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17 and 3.4.8
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
- Debian installs use the Debian 3.2 kernel from squeeze-backports
- Ubuntu installs use the 3.2 kernel from the 12.04 LTS release
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
All hosts running linux are being installed with FAI. This ranges from desktops,
to the hardware compute nodes in our Openstack cloud and everything in between.
How do you boot your hosts? We boot our hosts via PXE/DHCP. We also have a netboot CD for cases where this isn't possible.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing?
- The default install kernel for Ubuntu has recognized all hardware that I've tried to install.
- The default install kernel for Debian was missing the latest versions of the broadcom drivers.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control?
- We manage our newer config space with git, and older config space with SVN.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
- Ubuntu: 236K, #89
- Debian: 16M, #1197
How many files do you have in ../config/files?
- Ubuntu: 22
- Debian: 987
What types of scripts are you using for local customization?
- For Debian, we use shell scripts, and some file copying that's munged with cfengine a bit. We've migrated
to Puppet for Ubuntu hosts. Configuration for puppet includes running a few shell scripts that add local
Facter facts to /etc/facter/facts.d based on the FAI_CLASSES of the machine, and then starts a chroot'ed
puppet agent run. As a result, the Ubuntu/puppet based FAI setup requires much less scripting and file
copying, so the config tree is drastically smaller.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Higher education & research: MIT CSAIL
MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Additional comments:
We use FAI for all linux installations. I believe we started with FAI in the Debian Lenny release cycle, and the transition
to Ubuntu has been very seamless. We investigated the Razor Project since it's what Puppet Labs recommends
(https://github.com/puppetlabs/Razor/wiki), but the FAI Nfsroot and class-based setup provides a lot more flexibility
(particularly when it comes to installing later kernel versions and hardware drivers), so we stuck with FAI.
From: Harald Staub, firstname . lastname @switch .ch>
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 17:08:10 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 90 Which version of fai are you using? normally from current Debian stable, also from Debian testing when late in cycle Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? server hardware, VM templates How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? sometimes it was necessary to use backports or testing Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2.4M, 819 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 593 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? SWITCH internet services for the Swiss universities, registry for domain names ending in .ch and .li
Additional comments: number of indirectly installed systems is not included above (VMs based on templates that in turn are made with fai) (maybe 200). See also our last FAI questionnaire from 2004-09-01
From: Tobias Kreilos, firstname dot lastname @ physik.uni dash marburg de
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:00:24 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 14
Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.8
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian Wheezy (3.2)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): 8
using FAI-CD: 6
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.4G, 93 files (including some proprietary software
that gets automatically installed)
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 41
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? Working group at physics departement of university of Marburg
Additional comments:
It took some time to set it up, but now installing and updating became so easy :)
From: Paolo Miotto = paolo. miotto @at@ uniud dot it
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:01:00 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~40, ~30 production hosts, ~10 development hosts Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 and working (slowly) on wheezy migration Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? H/A Clusters nodes, standalone servers How do you boot your hosts? all hosts (physical and Xen PV) are installed via network. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? All hardware are recognized, only firmware from non-free is needed for some of them. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, under SVN, planning to switch to git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? ~10M in 1.300 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? ~600 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell script What is the business of your company/organisation? educational: University of Udine's computer center
From: anonymous math.fau.de
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2012 10:52:22 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~200 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.8ubuntu2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? 3.2.0-33-generic ubuntu kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops (server) How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no Which drivers are missing? hp-netxen (for hp dl585 g7) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes hg How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 8.9M, #1138 How many files do you have in ../config/files? #1052 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? puppet What is the business of your company/organisation? education, Depmartment Mathematik FAU Erlangen-Nuernberg
From: Katarzyna Myrek, katarz y n a == myrek = pl, michal dot dwuznik notdotbut@ g m a i l.c o m
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2012 19:24:56 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About a hundred Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.8 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Vanilla Debian Squeeze kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, 5 flavours (different hardware and software used) How do you boot your hosts? Via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Mostly. Which drivers are missing? Drivers for Intel ethernet cards. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 15GB as of yet How many files do you have in ../config/files? Lots of. What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Bash scripts for linux part, chntpw+ntfsclone for MS Windows part. What is the business of your company/organisation? Education AGH University of Science and Technology and Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science
Additional comments: (What follows is written by Katarzyna Myrek, agreed upon by the parties involved, with K.M and M.D. remarks marked below when needed) My bachelor's degree thesis in 'applied computer science' is based on FAI - the title translated to English is (sorry, looong one): 'Design and deployment of an automated system to install, configure, upgrade and recover operating systems within WFiIS (the faculty) computer lab environment' Some details below. Michal Dwuznik is one of my tutors (and a de facto happy coworker rather than a teacher, by his own words). Deployment and disaster recovery of operating systems in faculty computer labs, ranging from old machines serving 'linux for dummies' classes, through 'network lab' to 'Sound processing/graphics lab'. Extension to 'nuclear electronics and particle detectors' and 'biometrics' lab is foreseen as well. For most of the labs there's a common NFS /home for users + NIS server handling the accounts database for Linux part and Novell eDirectory serving the same purpose on Windows. M.D.:Legacy NIS to be replaced by LDAP+KRB5 combo as soon as possible (fingers crossed) The machines involved are dual-boot -> there's a new set of actions created by me for cloning 'known good' windows installations to the 'image server' as well as ones for 'golden image'->workstation recovery (ntfsclone with the needed registry changes done by chntpw) M.D:The Windows part of the deployment with no WDS around is blood, sweat and tears (and working really nice afterwards) The software included in the installs in various places (other than 'typical Debian stable desktop install') contains: 1)Linux side a) local gizmos: NIS, NFS /home, monitoring, SSH keys to access the running hosts, faculty wallpapers and GDM theme, etc. b) 'IDE' group(and class as well)-> recent versions of eclipse, netbeans, QTSDK, Codeblocks, CUDA toolkit, MPI... c) 'HEP' software -> CERN ROOT Object Oriented Toolkit, GEANT4 d) 'IC design' group -> Cadence environment from Europractice, Xilinx tools 2)included in Windows installs (in 'golden images' deployed on the workstations): a) Novell Zenworks environment integration b) Matlab/Mathematica/CFD packages c) lots of software in Zenworks containers -> MS Office, web browsers, 'everyday utilities' 3)virtualization tools for both Windows and Linux to serve as VM host platforms for various 'special needs' -> disposable VMs with root access for some classes, VMs tailored for some legacy software needs, tools to connect to remote lab equipment. M.D.: Cadence/EUROPRACTICE install - full range of ASIC development tools + various design kits (can't name them all due to NDAs) was pretty hard part, too... Close cooperation with IC design experts made it possible (ASICs designed here were/are/will be used in various applications -> from neurobiology experiments through X-ray diffractometry to high energy physics experiments) Lab use of that requires quite some effort to run software packages certified for various RHEL versions to run on _one_ Debian, plus some logging/firewalling/scripting to reach the license servers and in the same time comply with non-disclosure-agreements. The future extension of the aforementioned system to include 'electronics' labs will probably bring even more software packages, and many more licensing and security issues...
From: Denny Schierz, linuxmail <four>lin dot=net
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:23:56 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? At the moment, round about 20 hosts
Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Custom 3.3.x kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Vmware ESX VMs with Squeeze for Bachelor students,
servers for Print/Web/Backup/Icinga ....
How do you boot your hosts? PXE/DHCP via ISC dhcpserver / dnsmasq, SPARC ALOM Network
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
The default Debian kernel has a bug with mdadm partitions, which
produces a lot of noise in syslog
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not at the moment, but planed with Puppet
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 792K / 118 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 51
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? University, Department of Computer Science, Technical University of Darmstadt
Additional comments:
We have Fai installed in a VM which let us install SPARC (v215/v245) in the same way, like
every X86 host (but with Alom instead of PXE and customized partition setup). Also we have
Bacula on the backup side, so that we can in the emergency case reinstall the broken client
and push the latest backup back. Also on the todo list: Use Puppet for the configuration
files and create a clone from the whole production environment for testing purposes.
From: Christopher Huhn, hpc gsi de
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:43:24 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Many since 2005, currently we have about 2000 nodes running.
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1 and 3.4.7
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Mostly plain Debian kernel, custom kernels for our Lustre servers.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? clusters, servers, desktops and some notebooks
Basically all of these including batch clusters with ~ 15k cores, Lustre storage
clusters with >200 servers and >4 PB net storage, central servers for
DNS,DHCP,mail web etc. desktops and some notebooks all running Debian.
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): This is the default.
using FAI-CD: Virtual FAI-CD images mounted via Samba and
IPMI BMCs - until we managed to PXE-boot via Infiniband.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing?
Intel 10Gbit Ethernet modules are sometimes too old. We create custom packages
with newer modules then.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN and Git.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 5 MB, 538
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 78
What types of scripts are you using for local customization?
We only do the base install with FAI (formatting, package install and
configuration management system bootstrapping) and let Cfengine2 and/or Chef
take over for the continuous configuration management afterwards.
The config space for these tools is therefore much larger.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Non-profit research institute. GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung
Additional comments:
FAI serves us very well since many years now. Picture of one cluster
From: Sebastien Varrette, first . lastname @ uni.lu
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 11:37:25 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 151 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Beowulf cluster computing nodes How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no Which drivers are missing? bnx2 (from non-free package firmware-bnx2) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 420M, 243 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 122 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? education, University of Luxembourg
Additional comments: We are using FAI to deploy the computing nodes of our clusters (pictures)
From: Olaf Ohlenmacher, olf == obda. dddeee
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2012 20:17:29 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 7 as yet Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.8 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? servers only (different standard services) How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? firmware-bnx2 (for Broadcom Network cards) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, using git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 477M, 110 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? #50 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash, cfengine, perl What is the business of your company/organisation? government
Additional comments: We are using FAI since about four months for installation. The installation base is quite small yet. But I think it will increase rapidly ;-) You have done some quit good work!
From: Liane Siebert, arch dot siebert ===vienna onedotagain at
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 14:47:47 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20 ASAP Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, mailserver How do you boot your hosts? PXE via network (PXE, DHCP): fixed addr., DHCP for guests only Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? still under construction How many files do you have in ../config/files? still under construction What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash What is the business of your company/organisation? architecture office, Architekturbüro Siebert
Additional comments: Final aim: Machines normally can boot and work without FAI, because no FAT-server is online otherwise all machines are building a cluster with diskless terminals for graphical work, next VM qemu is planned
From: Steffen Knauf, SKnauf X chip=DE
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:06:20 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Round about 400 hosts Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Customized 3.X Kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All type of servers, e.g. webserver, databaseserver.... How do you boot your hosts?: PXE/DHCP Do you manage your configuration space under version control?: Yes, using Subversion How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2,9MB / 459 Files How many files do you have in ../config/files?: 232 What types of scripts are you using for local customization?: Shell,Perl,cfengine. We plan to use puppet in the future. What is the business of your company/organisation? Media, CHIP Xonio Online GmbH
Additional comments: We use different FAI_ETC_DIR directories and nfsroots for Lenny and Squeeze, but the same config space. Thanks for your great work!
From: Philipp Gasteiger, Xgasteiger Xmunichx Xde
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:37:05 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~10 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, Notebooks, Web Server, Mail Server How do you boot your hosts? Network Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes! Which drivers are missing? None Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes with Git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 10 MB, #75 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 36 What is the business of your company/organisation? Online Services, munichx e.K.
Additional comments: Thanks for the good Software, our team likes it a lot and it makes installations much easier!
From: Michael Fladerer
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2011 18:12:27 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~50 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, notebooks, web server, mail server, NFS server How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? All necessary for installation. Which drivers are missing? None. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2.7MB, 214 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 83 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, R & D, Institue of Numerical Methods in Mechanical Engineering
From: Antonio RUSSO, antonio-externe.russo -edf- Xfr
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 12:06:16 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
We have installed 7 clusters using FAI :
- Vil1 : 36 hosts
- Vil3 : 20 hosts
- Tre1 : 132 hosts
- Tre2 : 130 hosts
- Clamart2 : 275 hosts
- Ivanoé (calcul nodes diskless) : 12 hosts
- Aster4: 54 hosts
Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Custom build kernel 2.6.32
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
- cluster nodes
- NFS servers
- Puppet Master servers
- Torque/Maui servers
- SLURM servers
- Web, NTP and mail servers
How do you boot your hosts?
The first server is installed using a USB disk, the others are
installed via network (DHCP + GPXE)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, using Subversion.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell + Puppet after the installation
== For the Aster4 cluster (this is the most complex configuration)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 29MB, #633
How many files do you have in ../config/files? #439
What is the business of your company/organisation? Energy, EDF S.A. - Électricité de France
Additional comments:
We use FAI for the installation and for backup/restore system images using a hook.
From: Solomon Matthews, Solomon dotMatthews att=riotintoDOT.com
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 12:54:53 +1000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~20 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.8 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel. Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, web server (intranet), assorted servers to support software development, build machines. How do you boot your hosts? Network. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? All necessary for the installation Which drivers are missing? None Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, with Git. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 9.0M, #50 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 20 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? CFengine, Python CFengine (installed as part of FAI builds) Python (custom CFengine modules and config scripts used in FAI installations) What is the business of your company/organisation? Mining, Rio Tinto
Additional comments: Thanks for the quick reply, and for your excellent software. My team develops software for surface mining automation, we currently use FAI to build hosts to support software development and trial deployments.
From: Thomas Leitner
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 16:47:40 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Around Around 250 host. Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.5ubuntu3 Which version are you using as your install kernel? custom build kernel 2.6 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops and cluster nodes How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Everything works fine. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? Don't know since the FAI server is actually maintained by someone else. We are using a custom built frontend that uses FAI for installing Linux on the backend side. What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell and perl scripts for FAI initiated customization. But most configuration is done after the installation via puppet. What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Vienna
From: Alexander Swen
Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 17:14:00 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? currently: 4, counting, will grow fast. in experimental phase at the moment. Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian 2.6.32-5-amd64 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? application and db servers How do you boot your hosts? network pxe/dhcp Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no, had to install firmware-bnx2 Which drivers are missing? firmware-bnx2 Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, github How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 400k, #58 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? puppet What is the business of your company/organisation? Nedap Healthcare
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 17:56:16 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 200+ Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.2ubuntu1~lucid1~ppa1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Ubuntu kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All types of servers How do you boot your hosts? PXE/DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? < 1MB How many files do you have in ../config/files? 47 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell What is the business of your company/organisation? System design/integration in the HPC world
Additional comments: FAI is a great piece of software. I really like it's flexibility. Thanks a lot for your work.
From: Syd Alsobrook, syd | ittagteam dod= com
Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 11:44:18 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20+ Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian 2.6.32-5-686 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Physical and virtual server How do you boot your hosts? PXE and FAI-CD Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Which drivers are missing? None yet Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, git How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 312K, 38 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 7 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell and cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? IT Tag Team, Inc.
Additional comments: Deploying internal and client systems.
From: Steffen Eichler, StayFriends, Germany
Date: Mon, 2 May 2011 13:54:54 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? several hundred (and counting) Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? database servers, application servers, Xen hosts (Dom0) How do you boot your hosts? via network: PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? mostly, yes Which drivers are missing? sometimes problems with broadcom network cards Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes (subversion) How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? -> etch 6,3MB, #64 -> lenny 1,4MB, #59 -> squeeze 388KB, #14 How many files do you have in ../config/files? find files ! -type d | grep -v svn|grep -v cvs|wc -l -> etch = 13 -> lenny = 13 -> squeeze = 14 What is the business of your company/organisation? social network platform, StayFriends GmbH
Additional comments: We are running a very basic setup to perform the basic partitioning and minimal OS installation; the rest is managed by puppet. Additional sites we host: http://www.trombi.com/ http://www.stayfriends.se/ http://www.stayfriends.at/ http://www.stayfriends.ch/ http://www.abschlusszeit.de/ http://www.stayfriends.com/
From: Hans-Gerd van Schelve, LVM Versicherung, Germany
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:01:16 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 10.000 Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.4lvm21 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Linux 2.6.32-24-generic-pae i686 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops and notebooks How do you boot your hosts? DHCP / PXE Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, bazaar How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 788K, 93 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 25 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? we have added some shell based scripts What is the business of your company/organisation? LVM Versicherung is a german insurance company.
Additional comments: We are using FAI for installation of our Ubuntu based desktop systems. We did some modifications to implement our own software deployment solution. This way we are able to install each system with the software that the user needs.
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:47:09 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~32000 in batches of ~30 to ~700 with each go
Which version of fai are you using? most current one i.e. 3.4.7 as of April 2011
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel and custom ones depending on
use case; ~70% plain Debian/CentOS/Fedora though
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? dedicated servers and shared hosting platform
e.g. NAS drives and cluster nodes using Supermicro/Dell/IBM gear; sometimes office setups
How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP and custom infrastructure management using IBM software written for us
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? most of the time all works
(Dell and Supermicro hardware); if not we customize until it does
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? from ~ 160 MiB to ~3.2 GiB depending on use case
How many files do you have in ../config/files? from ~230 to ~650 depending on use case
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? custom python framework
What is the business of your company/organisation? hosting provider, financial industry
quantitative analysis and data modellling
From: Frank Doelitzscher, doelitz :ad: hs - furtwangen .de
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:04:08 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 100+ Which version of fai are you using? 3.3 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel 2.6.x Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cloud VMs, Debian based, minimal and desktop systems How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes and No. We needed a special bios version for the virtual network card kvm is using. Which drivers are missing? Bios file for network card model type = "rtl8139" Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, svn. What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, expect What is the business of your company/organisation? Research institute at Hochschule Furtwangen University
Additional comments: We used FAI to provide students with preconfigured virtual machines (VMs). FAI enabled us to deliver this without maintaining a lot of different VM images, based on the software installed. Poster of our architecture.
From: Dirk Sandbrink, Uni Münster
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:42:44 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 60 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.7 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, using bzr How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 4.4M, 594 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 372 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? mostly shell, some cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? Institute for Theoretical Physics, WWU Münster
From: Frederik Wagner = Frederik .Wagner @physik dot uni minus muenchen. de
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:31:49 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ca. 400 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.2 (ubuntu lucid) Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Ubuntu karmic/lucid kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, server base installations How do you boot your hosts? PXE/DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes so far Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? currently not How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? ~20MB in 4600 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? ~4400 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell (very few cfengine) What is the business of your company/organization? Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Univesitaet Munich What is the business of your company/organisation?
Additional comments: We are deploying all our Ubuntu workstations completely with FAI. Servers only receive their base installation through FAI. We are migrating to a reduced/minimal FAI installation for all systems. The main configuration work is going to be processed by Puppet.
From: Mark Eisenblaetter, mark doot eisenblaetter gm ail dooot c o m
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:59:34 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 50 so far, mosly virtual machines
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Debian Lenny 64bit
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? HP servers and VMs, but mostly VMs (using VMware)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Streaming, encoding mainly for broadcasting stations
special audio/video project, media center, live recording systems,...
G&L Geißendörfer & Leschinsky GmbH
Additional comments:
Mostly for installing the base system, when implementing FAI
(Installation and Configuration Management) i was fixed on supporting most *inx- Systems.
So I use FAI for installation and CFengine for configuration.
I will try to move from Debian tu Ubuntu in the future, but there is
no timetable yet.
From: Kai Wilke, kiste===netzworkk===de
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:21:24 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ca. 25 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel 2.6.26-1 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktop Clients, DVD for MainServer How do you boot your hosts? DHCP, server installation using FAI-DVD Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. Which drivers are missing? None. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No, not yet. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 644 KByte, #140 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 63 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine and scripts (Zshell). What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, SBB in Hamburg
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:31:44 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Round about, >= 350 hosts and it's increasing
Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.3ubuntu1~lucid1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? vmlinuz-2.6.32-25-server
(from Ubuntu Lucid with changes to live-initramfs)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? webserver, mailserver, tomcat application servers etc.
everything which has linux on it.
How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, Bazaar-NG (aka bzr)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 200K, 50 Files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 2
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, python, puppet
What is the business of your company/organisation? desktop collaboration
Additional comments:
Nice pictures.
From: Frederik Konietzny, f r k o = fr.ed.eri.k.k.on.iet.z.ny = de
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:33:30 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 300 (200 at company A, 100 at company B) Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.5 Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.32-bpo.5-amd64 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, web and mail server How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (mercurial) How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 493K, #123 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 0 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine, chef What is the business of your company/organisation? Web analytics and tracking
From: andrew bezella, abezella a r c h i v e org
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:51:16 -0800
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 200 and rising Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.5ubuntu3 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain ubuntu kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, miscellaneous infrastructure servers How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 616K, 97 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 17 files What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell and cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? non-profit, digital library, Internet Archive
Additional comments: FAI is used to partition and format the disks and lay down a base install. As the final step in fai's install process, cfengine is called to configure the operating system.
From: Jan Westendorf
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:24:00 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 273 hosts (100 Debian) Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.2 for Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Ubuntu 10.04: 2.6.32-25-generic, Ubuntu 10.10: 2.6.35-22-generic Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, servers, also notebooks in the future How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? We had problems with our Dell server with the bnx2 nic/driver (we had to rebuild the initrd) Which drivers are missing? bnx2 Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 335 MB What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine and a little bit of expect and perl What is the business of your company/organisation? Research Centre DESY DESY is one of the world's leading centres for the investigation of the structure of matter
Additional comments: We are using FAI for installation management for Debian ( 3.0 / 4.0 old ) and Ubuntu ( 8.04 32bit / 9.04 32bit / 9.10 32bit / 10.04 32bit / 64bit / 10.10 64bit )
From: Josselin Mouette, josselin dot mouette = edf fr
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:00:28 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~1000 workstations, 500+ cluster nodes
Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.4, 3.1.8, 3.2.17
Which version are you using as your install kernel? lenny, squeeze: plain Debian kernel
etch: backported 2.6.26 or 2.6.32 kernel from lenny/squeeze
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, laptops, infrastructure servers, cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): for cluster nodes
from USB stick: with a custom build
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
We make it so, usually by backporting more recent kernels from Debian.
Which drivers are missing? Usually WiFi, sometimes SATA or GigE.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? A couple MB, < 100 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? Not much.
The bulk of the configuration is managed through
configurationpackages. Software selection is managed through a
set of ca. 100 metapackages.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Configuration packages, using custom scripts and cfengine.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Energy, EDF - Électricité de France
Additional comments:
We use a custom-built CD to boot our install clients, except for cluster
nodes. The CD embarks the kernel and an initrd with a config script
asking a couple of questions and setting up variables used later on by
FAI scripts & hooks. Thanks to syslinux/isolinux we use the same build
to make bootable USB keys. We also make a bootable USB hard drive
containing a full Debian mirror along with the FAI NFSROOT and
configspace; a standalone install media.
From: Markus Wigge, wigge === beuth-hochschule ==de
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:40:03 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 6 so far, more to come. Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.5 from fai-project repository because the original Debian version 3.2.17 does not support custom repository keys yet. Which version are you using as your install kernel? - Citrix XenServer Kernel provided on xs-tools CD - plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? VM Server, Hardware Server How do you boot your hosts? - PXE - direkt execution by XenServer Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yep Which drivers are missing? no probs so far. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? not yet, maybe if more people need access. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 248k, #36 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 7 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, Beuth Hochschlue für Technik Berlin - HRZ
Additional comments: The main reason for FAI was to simplify installations. I knew kickstart from my former company and needed s.th. similar for debian. Yes, FAI is ways more flexible.
From: anonymous, info this-ad-thing wh-netz. de
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:47:57 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 16
Which version of fai are you using? actual 3.3.2ubuntu1~ppa1, we will upgrade to 3.4.2ubuntu1~maverick1~ppa1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain ubuntu 2.6.31
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): Yes
using FAI-CD: No
from USB stick: No
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1020K, #176
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 111
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? mainly shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? WH-Netz e.V. Verein für Technologietransfer und Netzwerksicherheit
Additional comments:
We use fai to install our working pc's with the latest Ubuntu.
From: Andreas Hirczy, ahi =@=itp .=tugraz dot=at
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:54:12 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? over all ~200 installations, currently running ~100
Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.5
Which version are you using as your install kernel? custom build kernel 2.6.32.7 and 2.6.35.x and grml kernel 2.6.33
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, server:
web, mail, AFS, Kerberos (experimental)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): preferred
using FAI-CD: none
from USB stick: only when PXE does not work with
the network adapter
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, subversion - might change to git in the future
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 126 kB, 55 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 6 files
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine2
What is the business of your company/organisation? education and research, Graz University of Technology,
Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics
Additional comments:
I perform only a very basic installation for workstations: the
install target is text mode only, with openssh-server, cfengine2,
krb5, and AFS client working. I have quite a bit of cfengine and
perl scripting to complete this to either a workstation or a
computing node.
Servers install allmost to a deployment ready state.
Currently I am working an automating notebook installs - including
desktop environment and power-management. This work should later
improve our desktop installation.
From: Chris Jewell = chris .jewell nodot warwick dot ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:59:18 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 7 Which version of fai are you using? 3.4.2ubuntu1~lucid1~ppa1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Ubuntu Lucid 2.6.32-24-server Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cluster execution nodes How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No Which drivers are missing? Broadcom NetExtreme (bnx2.ko) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No, but probably should, and will soon! How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 576k How many files do you have in ../config/files? 32 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? Department of Statistics, University of Warwick.
Additional comments: We use FAI to standardise our cluster node installations for a small Departmental cluster (picture) here at Warwick. We find this preferable to disk imaging as we occasionally add new nodes, and so end up with a heterogeneous cluster. In general, I would say that I find FAI pretty powerful. My only criticism would be that it is sometimes difficult to migrate to new versions: for example, I had to re-write my fai/config directory just recently during a system upgrade from Ubuntu 8.04 to 10.04. Other than that, it has been fairly painless, apart from a lot of work choosing which packaged to install on my execution nodes! Many thanks for your hard work on what looks to be a very promising, useful, and long lived project.
From: Frank Groetzner
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:55:45 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 50 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? base-installation for servers later configured by puppet How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no Which drivers are missing? firmware-bnx2 Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 30 files, 196K How many files do you have in ../config/files? 5 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? puppet, shell, perl, expect What is the business of your company/organisation? Customer Care Services
Additional comments: We use FAI only for the base-installation, detect disk-layout, setting up standarized partitioning, configure raid - and install puppetd which does the whole configuration work for us
From: Jonathan McCune, jonmccune = c m u d o t e d u>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:07:55 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 33
Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.2ubuntu1~ppa1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.31-22.60
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All HP 8530p or Lenovo T400 laptops.
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Did in 2009. Didn't bother in 2010.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 119M, 39
Two custom kernel .deb's consume about 47MB.
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 15
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Mostly shell, a couple of cfengine.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Cybersecurity research and education center, CyLab
Additional comments:
To manage lab environment for the Trusted Infrastructure Workshop (TIW)
Works pretty well.
From: Mike Adolphs, mike dod adolphs == xing dod com
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:26:52 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 300-400 servers so far
Which version of fai are you using? 2.X and 3.X releases
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian vanilla kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Any hosts located in our data centers
including app, db, search, worker and number crunching servers
How do you boot your hosts? PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing?
Works quite well so far on current hardware. We've had some problems
with IBM HS20 Blades, which required to build a custom kernel, but that's history.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Sure, subversion although we're git fans as well.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
2.0: 15 Mb Debian vanilla kernel, #698
3.0: 2 Mb (work just begun), #128
How many files do you have in ../config/files?
2.0: 550
3.0: 62
What is the business of your company/organisation? business network, XING AG
From: Olivier Chaze, eloquant
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:18:34 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20 Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.5 Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.33-grml Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Production servers and development servers How do you boot your hosts? From USB stick Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? 2.6.33-grml yes ! Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 14Mb, 64 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 23 files What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Voice Services (VoiceXML hosting), Contact Center Solution, Eloquant
Additional comments: We make a install average once a month. We need unstable debian to recognize the hardware. So we had a lot of differences between two manual installations of unstable debian with bugs and surprises. Now with FAI and a local Debian mirror everything is under control. Thanks a lot !
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 10:33:27 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 1500
Which version of fai are you using? we've upgraded over the last two years, currently 3.2.17~lenny1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Current plain Debian kernel from Lenny
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? data warehouse cluster nodes, web servers,
infrastructure servers like LDAP/DNS/FAI/SVN/cfengine/NTP
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE + DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3 MB
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 10
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Very little customization happens at FAI/install time,
mostly it happens with cfengine afterwards.
What is the business of your company/organisation? We're an advertising network.
We serve text-based ads on the internet over HTTP.
Additional comments:
FAI was great since it is class based like cfengine. Since we already use
cfengine extensively, it was easy to understand and use FAI.
Thanks for the great tool.
From: Nico Schottelius, nico=schottelius ==inf =ethz =ch
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 09:32:04 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~300 Which version of fai are you using? Various, from Lenny stable and koeln/experimental Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, web server How do you boot your hosts? dhcp+pxe only Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? not for newer systems - running ubuntu there Which drivers are missing? newer intel nics, dell perc (as found in dell r815 [0]) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yep, git. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3.3M, 94 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 31 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? puppet What is the business of your company/organisation? Computer science department at university, ETH Zurich Systems Group
Additional comments: Trying to minimise the scripts in fai, because we're trying to bootstrap only with fai, so configuration and customisation comes from puppet. This is a "general" problem, that every installation method (debian-installer, fai, kickstart, ...) has: if relying on the installation system, one spreads around the configuration. Thus we think that having a minimal system that supports only (some) configuration system, is the best way to go. Using fai is pretty straight forwarded, having the "log service" is very useful, though at the beginning not completly clear where to put the ssh keys and what's needed to get them into the chroot.
From: Bernd Erk, info = netways = de
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:59:11 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 160
Which version of fai are you using? always using the recent FAI version
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
* plain Debian-Kernel with aufs-Patches (2.6.26)
* custom build Kernel 2.6.33 based on Debian 2.6.26
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Base setups of Debian-Servers
How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing?
* Debian-Kernel is missing drivers for newer RAID-Controller and
Network-Cards
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1 MB, 67 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 52 files
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, puppet
What is the business of your company/organisation? Open Source Datacenter Solutions and Managed Services, NETWAYS GmbH
Additional comments:
We use FAI for a fast basic-installation of our servers, the final
configuration is applied afterwards by puppet
From: Michael Goetze
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:41:10 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Thousands - we install at least 100 new servers per month with FAI Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17, currently upgrading to 3.3.4 Which version are you using as your install kernel? grml-stable (currently 2.6.28, soon 2.6.31) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers How do you boot your hosts? via network (PXE, DHCP) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No. Which drivers are missing? Lenny's 2.6.26 lacked support for some newer Broadcom chips in 11th generation Dell hardware. I believe this is fixed in the next stable update. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, Subversion. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 222 MB (8.7MB without basefiles), 153 Files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 75, counting duplicates What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Mostly shell, very little cfagent What is the business of your company/organisation? big ISP in germany, Host Europe GmbH
Additional comments: There are two FAI installations in our company, these answers are only for one of them. We are using the same Lenny NFS root to install Debian Lenny as well as Ubuntu Hardy and Lucid, which works very well (I am always astonished at the masochism of people insisting on an Ubuntu nfsroot ;) ).
From: Karsten Hens
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:30:09 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? None, it did not work.
Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.3
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.31-grml
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Live Desktops (via grml-live)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP):
using FAI-CD: 1
from USB stick: 1
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 196K, 14
How many files do you have in ../config/files? ?
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? grml-live
What is the business of your company/organisation? private
Additional comments:
Leider haben alle meine Versuche mit FAI nicht gefruchtet. Nun habe
ich eine Live-CD, um die es ging, mit UCK erstellt.
From: Grant Root, grootXdayton-phoenixXcom
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:29:18 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3 Two production servers (including the FAI server itself :-) and one test machine. Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers How do you boot your hosts? PXE and DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? OK Do you manage your configuration space under version control?Yes, subversion. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 256K, 34 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 7 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Manufacturing, Dayton-Phoenix Group, Inc.
Additional comments: I have a couple of shell scripts within the FAI config. For instance, I need one to establish the RAID hot spares, since that feature doesn't work in my version of setup-storage. I use FAI to partition the disks and install a base system, along with the Puppet client. All subsequent configuration is done with Puppet.
From: Joel Merrick, joel.merrick =gmail|| com
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:25:36 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~200
Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.3
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain debian w/ extra firmware in NFSROOT
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All kinds of servers (DNS. Web, RADIUS etc..)
How do you boot your hosts?
CD/USB currently.
dirinstall in progress for Ganeti
PXE on it's way once network changes done
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing? Broadcom BNX2
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (SVN).
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? ~900K, ~250 Files
How many files do you have in ../config/files? ~20 (rest is done via config management)
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Chef
What is the business of your company/organisation? ISP
Additional comments:
Currently using CD and USB builds... waiting on network changes to
allow DHCP booting (politics involved).
We have 4 datacentres across the UK.
From: Erwan Hesry, erwanhesry =gmailcom
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:06:29 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 60
Which version of fai are you using? 3.3
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Kernel 2.6.26-2-amd64
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): PXE
using FAI-CD: for the server
from USB stick: no
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? On VMWare yes,
on real world, there's one with the hard disc drive
Which drivers are missing? Sata Controller (but that's a special
controller on the desktops (on an Intel ICH9, there's no problem)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 1 per client for
specific software install and 1 for all clients for the HDD
configuration (all desktops are the same)
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? cfengine, shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? University of Networks and Telecommunication at Saint Malo
Additional comments:
Installation of all computers of the University
From: Manuel Prinz
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:09:08 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~40 Which version of fai are you using? 3.3.3 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cluster nodes, file servers How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. Which drivers are missing? None. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet, but we'd like to use Git. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 784 KB, 97 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 42 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine What is the business of your company/organisation? Scientific research, Centre for Medical Biotechnology
Additional comments: We use FAI to install and manage a compute cluster running Debian GNU/Linux.
From: Paul Lathrop, =+=plathrop = digg _dot com
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:49:08 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 700 servers accross 2 datacenters Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.20 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? servers How do you boot your hosts? Network PXE boot. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. Which drivers are missing? None Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 586K, 84 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 33 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Shell and puppet scripts. What is the business of your company/organisation? social news/media company. Digg, Inc.
Additional comments: All of our servers are built using FAI. Currently we have approximately 700 servers across 2 datacenters, and we use FAI to bootstrap all of them. We don't use FAI for our office machines. Our installation is pretty small because we rely on FAI to get servers up to the point where Puppet can take over to finish the configuration of the system. FAI is a pretty critical component of our infrastructure because it makes reprovisioning a machine cheaper than reconfiguring, which saves us a lot of time and headache troubleshooting lifecycle-related problems.
From: Patrick Cervicek
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 15:13:21 +0100 (CET)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5, in the future ~0-5 per month
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.26-2-486
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops,notebooks
How do you boot your hosts?
via network (PXE, DHCP): no, pxe does not work with every NIC
using FAI-CD: yes, as network boot with DHCP & "nfsroot="
from USB stick: yes, as network boot with DHCP & "nfsroot="
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, subversion
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 5.2M, #213
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 36
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, expect, puppet in the future
What is the business of your company/organisation? automotive industry
Additional comments:
You can see here our actual FAI installation procedure
http://lisas.de/~patrick/blog/?p=113
From: informatik uni mannheim de
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:40:04 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? It's currently deployed in an environment of 20 boxes Which version of fai are you using? 3.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, it's planned to use it for servers, too How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Everything works fine How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 28M How many files do you have in ../config/files? 42 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? bash What is the business of your company/organisation? educational -- university
From: Robert Markula, firstname. surname @ gmx.net>
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:12:16 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 6-?? (two physical, at least four virtual nodes)
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Ubuntu+Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? 2 notebooks (one used as a multi-purpose-server)
The rest are virtualized hosts used in very different scenarios, some
as servers, some as desktops.
What is the business of your company/organisation? ---
Additional comments:
This is a private test install to test various use cases - from very
basic things like DHCP/DNS/Firewalling to topics like Terminal
Services, Asterisk, VPN scenarios, central authentication
services/SSO, and so on. In all this, FAI plays an inherent role from
the very beginning. The nice thing is, with the help of FAI I can
setup the whole infrastructure with a single command! For my private
use at home I use FAI as well - which is a bit of overkill, I know -
but it's relieving to know that even in a worst-case-scenario I can
have my systems up'n'running in no time and with minimal effort
involved.
From: Florian Maier, florian =maier _muenchen d o t .de>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:05:15 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~2500, update nov 2014: 16.000 hosts
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.x
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.26
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, notebooks, linux server
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: x
type of network card: various
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick:
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP: x
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no, but it is stored inside LDAP
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? depends on install type
How many files do you have in ../config/files? depends on install type
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl
What is the business of your company/organisation? local government, City of Munich, LiMux project
Additional comments:
Additional comments: currently deploying ~ 2500 desktops and a couple of
servers. We are using FAI together with GOsa, and the whole config
space is stored inside an LDAP scheme.
From: anonymous, zivit.de
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:01:36 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ca. 260
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1
> debian sarge: 2.8.4sarge1
> debian etch: 3.1.8
> debian lenny: 3.2.17~lenny1
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
> sarge+etch: custom build kernel 2.6
> lenny: plain Debian kernel
> for all: customized initrd/initramfs-Image
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? all type of servers (web, mail, apps, firewall)
How do you boot your hosts? for Installation via z/VM Reader and NFS, later via IPL from DASD
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 19M, #3324
How many files do you have in ../config/files? #1357
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine
What is the business of your company/organisation? public sector (finance),
Zentrum für Informationsverarbeitung und Informationstechnik (ZIVIT)
Additional comments:
We are running on a rather unusal high end hardware platfrom:
2x IBM System z10 EC mainframes with z/VM 5.4 Hypervisor.
For Linux, we have 16 IFLs (Integrated Facility for Linux) on each
machine and about 300GB RAM. In other LPARs, we are also running z/OS.
From: Mike Carvalho, Mike=Carvalho=mathworks=com
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 11:24:30 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~1000 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Currently plain Debian 5.0.2 kernel (32-bit and 64-bit) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops How do you boot your hosts? All hosts booted using PXE,DHCP. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, configuration spaces are maintained under Perforce How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.1M, 169 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 47 files What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine. The majority are written in cfengine. What is the business of your company/organisation? The MathWorks
Additional comments: We currently using FAI to install all Debian hosts, in various locations across the globe. We have been using FAI since Debian 3.1. FAI allows users to re-image their own desktop machines when we move from one version of Debian to the next to support development of our product (MATLAB/Simulink). PXE files are put in place on our PXE servers, allowing users a one-click install (press F12 during boot). All hosts are PXE booted, and the nfsroot, FAI config, and package repository are all served over NFS via NetApp filers. We find this method to be very robust and efficient. I am currently investigating the usage of FAI to build Ubuntu clients, with good success so far. We currently manually install Ubuntu clients, though the number of these hosts is currently <20 test machines. (http://www.sourcecode.de/content/ubuntu-910-and-fai) Update: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:17:02 -0400 (EDT) Thank you for making multiple client installations so easy with the use of FAI! Keep up the great work!
From: anonymous
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:29:14 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? >3000
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.20
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
FAI 3.2.20: plain Debian lenny kernel, plain Ubuntu hardy kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? web server, mail server, db, filers, ldap, routers
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: yes
type of network card: multiple but "Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)"
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? All seems to works fine
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, SVN
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 27M, #1204, (and 13 basefiles 1,2G)
How many files do you have in ../config/files? #232
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, cfengine
What is the business of your company/organisation? web portal
Additional comments:
We install over 3000 servers, with 3 FAI servers.
We install multi-distrib, like Debian Sarge/Etch/Lenny, Ubuntu Hardy, Centos 5.3, RHELs 5.3
From: Alexey, also =at= is =minus= nn . ru
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:45:18 +0300
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~10 hosts.
Different releases are installed and then tested. FAI
configuration varies sometimes.
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel (stable, testing)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Multimedia server, desktops, client devices
(videophone and control panels, STB)
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:No
via network card: No. To be tried later.
type of network card:
using FAI-CD:No
from USB stick:Yes
BOOTP:No
PXE, DHCP:No
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing? I have too small skills to describe the driver... external flash hdd is recognized as floppy one.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (svn).
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 356K, 57
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 15
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? Smarthome and Multimedia systems development, LLC Intelligence systems
Additional comments:
Each host is configured individually based on its hardware, role and user configuration.
Our experience with FAI is still not so long, but we find it very
powerful and going to base our main system installation on FAI.
Thank you for FAI!
From: Andreas Schuldei, andreas .aa. schuldei / org
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 14:03:55 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ca. 300 physical and 150 virtual
Which version of fai are you using? mostly 3.2.19
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, cluster masters, web server, mail server, name servers,
... entire server infrastructure with perhaps 50 different server types and services
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: all
type of network card: intel, broadcom
PXE, DHCP: all
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? the adaptec raid controller is a pain
Which drivers are missing? we buy our hardware so it fits.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, svn currently
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 31M, for lenny, #700
How many files do you have in ../config/files? #497
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl, python
What is the business of your company/organisation? music, Spotify
From: Stephan Hermann, sh sour cec ode. d e
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:34:28 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ca. 90 and counting more :) Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.20 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain debian kernel + some non-free firmware modules Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? servers (mostly HP types including Blades (HP BL7000c Enc + HP BL465 Blades) How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No Which drivers are missing? All "non-free" firmware drivers Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Bazaar, bzr How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 111 MB, 149 Files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 24 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Puppet What is the business of your company/organisation? Internet Based Meetings, Webinars, web Presentation
Additional comments: With some black magic, a webfront (django), mysql and a lot of brainfck ;) Do you have some nice pictures of your installation? 1. Nurenberg 2. FFM
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:36:12 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~300
Which version of fai are you using? distribution default from Debian Etch / Ubuntu Hardy
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
Debian: 2.6.18 x86_32 & x32_64
Ubuntu: 2.6.24 x86_32 & x32_64
(both distribution default)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
testing environment / default server installation according to standard
FAI is not supposed to manage the servers, just provide "a fresh image"
- Debian Etch/Lenny/Squeeze/Sid
- Ubuntu 8.04LTS, 9.10
- SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 & 11
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: x
type of network card: BroadCom NetExtreme / Intel EtherExpress 100(0) / XenSource Virtual NIC, VMware Virtual NIC
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick:
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP: x
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yep
Which drivers are missing? none so far
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, svn
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 790kb, 145
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 28
What is the business of your company/organisation? Internet provider
Additional comments:
FAI's main focus is to provide consistent default installations according
to our installation standard, it is set up in a way you only need to choose
the operation system. FAI_FLAGS to customize the installation details are being
set automatically according to the specifics of the hardware / virtual machine
Our FAI-server is able to create customized servers (packages, user,
ssh-keys etc. are individually configurable)
From: Vincent Batoufflet, BUF Compagnie
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:17:53 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? We are using FAI with about 1000 hosts.
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.20, and some oldest setups with 3.2.17 or 3.1.8.
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
- Plain GNU/Linux Debian Etch and Lenny kernels
- Custom kernels built with Grsecurity patch or Sun Microsystem Lustre
patch, or more recent kernels like 2.6.30 both custom and
backported ones.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
- Desktops
- Cluster nodes
- Render nodes
- Data storage servers (with both software and hardware RAID)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: yes
type of network card: bnx2, e100, igb, tg3...
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing?
We are using exclusively plain Debian kernels for basic setups.
Only our latest hosts have some troubles with Lenny default kernels
(eg.: Broadcom network chipsets and SAS controllers). For these hosts
we have custom 2.6.29 and 2.6.30 kernels which supports this hardware.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, we are using Subversion.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
- GNU/Linux Debian Etch 4.0: 1.5MB with 50 files.
- GNU/Linux Debian Lenny 5.0: 1.4MB with 44 files.
How many files do you have in ../config/files?
- GNU/Linux Debian Etch 4.0: 8 files.
- GNU/Linux Debian Lenny 5.0: 7 files.
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Exclusively both shell and Cfengine ones.
What is the business of your company/organisation? BUF Compagnie is a visual effects company
Additional comments:
We have only one FAI server (2 before that, but configuration were merged, and
a wrapper written for making nfsroot with `make-fai-nfsroot' for multiple distributions).
FAI is used at BUF to create the base system setup on our hosts. All
configuration is managed after that with a Cfengine system.
From: Gordon Grubert, grubert @@physik uni----greifswald dot de
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:39:57 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 9
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel 2.6.26-2-amd64
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: --
via network card: yes
type of network card: Intel Gigabit Ethernet Controller
(82546, 82576)
using FAI-CD: --
from USB stick: --
BOOTP: --
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? Intel Ethernet Controller 82576)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2.1MB, 69
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 34
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? Research,
INP Greifswald, Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology
Additional comments:
We are using FAI to install and manage our growing compute cluster system.
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:11:31 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 220
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.20 on our install server, 3.2.4+svn4837-0ubuntu2 on our clients
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? (high-end graphical) workstations and cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: broadcom, intel ether express variants
using FAI-CD: no
from USB stick: yes
BOOTP: no
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
in general it does recognize everything needed to install.
Which drivers are missing? sometimes our plain debian kernel fails to recognize Dell Perc/5i/6i
RAID controller cards. we then switched to an Ubuntu kernel for these few machines.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, we use SVN.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.2GB, 701 files
(note: we do have different versions of Dell Utility Partition images in our config space,
so we can roll them out after exchanges of hard disks, which are missing the Utility Partition)
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 393
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? University in germany
Additional comments:
It's used to to set up a cluster and workstations for our staff members and students.
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 11:20:35 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Somewhere around 700
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain debian kernel 2.6.18-6
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Custom application server + fai server,
Embedded linux systems running Debian
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick: Initial provision of nodes, then softupdate
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP: Initial provision of server, then softupdate
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? (svn). For the
servers, no - I will do that shortly. For the nodes, yes. We created
a debian package which installs FAI on our server, and the source for
that debian package is version controlled in SVN.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
Central FAI which provisions servers: 649K 103 files
Server FAI which provisions nodes: 196K 30 files
How many files do you have in ../config/files?
Central FAI which provisions servers: 36
Server FAI which provisions nodes: 4
(this is low because we like everything to be in version controlled debian packages)
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Almost exclusively shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? Managed service provider for hospitals
Additional comments:
Hi - thanks for building FAI. It's by far the best system for
provisioning and maintaining software on multiple systems that I've
used.
For reference while reading the answers, we're a managed service
provider. We install 100+ nodes into every customer installation,
along with an FAI server. The nodes are custom-built embedded linux
boxes which are bootstrapped with debian when they'r manufactured in
our factory. When a node is bootstrapped we have one hook script that
goes out to look for installation instructions. Our provisioning
process for a new customer looks like this:
INSTALLATION
1) Use an in-house instance of FAI to provision a server, which among
other things becomes an FAI server
2) Install the server at the customer site
3) Install our nodes at the customer site, each of which have been
bootstrapped without FAI in our factory with base debian plus a hook
script to ask how to install software
4) The node gets instructions to run fai -N softupdate
5) Presto - 100+ working nodes in about 15 minutes each.
UPGRADE - How we upgrade our software at the customer site
1) Update a configuration file centrally to update the version of
software which should be installed at the customer - this actually
manifests as a versioned etch distribution with our software added to
the distro
2) Shell in to the customer's server and run fai -N softupdate
3) Every node runs softupdate once every 2 hours and waits a random
amount of time so as to not overload the network or the FAI server
4) Presto - Everything just works
From: Javier Martínez Lago, edoreld=gmail=com
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:02:10 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~20 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Webserver, pbx server, firewall, business server & desktop environment for end-users How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 828K, #74 How many files do you have in ../config/files? #27 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? Bash scripts What is the business of your company/organisation? Providers of IT services & support, dig it!
From: Hannes Rist
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 18:19:42 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 13
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel (2.6.26-2)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: marvel yukon 2
using FAI-CD:no
from USB stick: no
BOOTP: no
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? intel/xorg for the graphics card
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, git (after
some idiot kept breaking the configuration)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? ,3.7M, 315
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 255
What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell
What is the business of your company/organisation? Student society playing ISP, Selfnet e.V.
Additional comments:
We needed a way to rapidly install our workstations without user
intervention. So if someone broke a workstation during some
experiment or the like we just re"deploy" it.
From: Ernest Jones. ejonesca++yahoo =com
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 08:43:18 -0700 (PDT)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 82 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.16 (standard version that came with Lenny) Which version are you using as your install kernel? Plain Debian kernel however I use a custom initrd to facilitate installing from a network card that's doesn't come first in the device sequence. Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Various cluster nodes with direct-attached storage. How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP via a Myricom 10G NIC. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? Broadcom network card drivers. I also add an updated Myricom 10G card driver/firmware. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, svn How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 4.9MB, 92 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 45 files What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell What is the business of your company/organisation? Family History
Additional comments: FAI is a great tool to streamline OS provisioning and software updates. Thanks for a great product.
From: Gebhardt Thomas gebhardt=hrz_uni-marburg_de
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 13:38:15 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~200 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel (since lenny) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? all kind of servers, many virtual servers (linux-vserver.org), some desktop machines How do you boot your hosts? DHCP + TFTP + PXELINUX (campus infrastructure) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? until now, the lenny kernel is ok. Had some troubles with etch and new e1000 nics. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, by svn. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 32M, #1804 How many files do you have in ../config/files? #559 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, perl What is the business of your company/organisation? Computing Center, University of Marburg
Additional comments: fai softupdate helps us to herd the crowd
From: Fabian Haupt, fhaupt =informatik. uni- wuerzburg || de
Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 16:36:26 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 60 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17 Which version are you using as your install kernel? custom build kernel-2.6.29 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops,servers, and virtual servers How do you boot your hosts? always PXE, DHCP, no other method allowed. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Nope, needed a custom kernel, too Which drivers are missing? Network drivers for Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, subversion. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 136M, 488 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 66 What types of scripts are you using for local customization? shell, cfengine, and perl What is the business of your company/organisation? University, Mathematics departments of the university of Wuerzburg
Additional comments: We used to use the local debian mirror at ftp.rz.uni-wuerzburg.de, but it was too slow, so we have a local (meaning in the same subnet with GBit access). This decreased our install-time from over 2 hours down to 30 minutes for all boxes. The default setup on the clients occupies 11GB diskspace (plain debian packages...) We use it for the computer labs in the mathematics departments of the university of Wuerzburg. http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/ueber/fakultaeten/mathematik/dienste/cip-pool/startseite/ (the picture shows the previous(gentoo-based) setup and should be updated ;) )
From: Sebastian Juzwiuk
Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 11:06:18 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~300
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1 and 3.2.8
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain 2.6.26-1-amd64 and 2.6.26-1-686
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes and single servers,
Hardware: HP Blade( BL460c, BL35p) , IBM Blade (HS20 and HS21)
How do you boot your hosts? via network card
type of network card:Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5708 1000Base-SX
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? NO
Which drivers are missing? Firmware-bnx2 on lenny
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, svn
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 8.0M, #104
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 104
What is the business of your company/organisation? Opera Software
From: Nicolas Courtel. courtel =cena dot=fr
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:00:57 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? More than 200, most of which have been installed several times
Which version of fai are you using? At this time 3.2.19 for Lenny, 3.1.8 for Etch, 2.8.4 for Sarge
Which version are you using as your install kernel? standard 2.6.26 for Lenny
2.6.18 custom for Sarge, standard Etchnhalf 2.6.24 for Etch
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Mostly desktops, notebooks and netbooks,
some Web servers, 2 Xen servers. Xen clients are installed with xen-tools
How do you boot your hosts?
PXE, DHCP: all hosts, with a lot of various network chips
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Since version 3.2, yes
Which drivers are missing? nforcedeth & tigon3 were missing in 2.8 & 3.1
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
Sarge: 627 files, 369 Mb (there are some large tar.gz)
Etch: 666 files, 119 Mb
Lenny: 559 files, 100 Mb
How many files do you have in ../config/files?
Sarge: 414, Etch 390, Lenny 352
What is the business of your company/organisation? DSNA/DTI French Air Traffic Control
Additional comments:
2 FAI servers are used to install 3 versions of Debian on 3 subnetworks, using vlans.
The choice of the version is up to the user, provided the hardware is compatible.
We use a local mirror, except for Sarge which uses now archive.debian.org
From: Christoph Kluenter
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 17:32:55 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
Which version of fai are you using? etch and lenny
Which version are you using as your install kernel? custom 2.6.22 for etch and 2.6.24 for lenny
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers
How do you boot your hosts?
PXE, DHCP: X
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No.
Which drivers are missing? support for new 3ware raidcontrollers was
missing in the default etch kernel and we had some trouble with newer
intel chipsets under etch.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control?no.
Since we have VCS for our packages, this is not necessary.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 400k
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 55
What is the business of your company/organisation? Hoster
Additional comments:
We use it for setup only. Most config/maintenance is made by packages.
Thats why our fai-config is quite small. Mostly package_config/* is modified
From: Gert Huisman, gert -@- few dot vu =nl>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:02:45 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? around 200 (several times).
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian lenny kernel
We have uses custem build kernels in the past to support newer hardware
(networkcards, sata controllers).
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops (120+), cluster nodes (50+), servers (30+)
(xen servers, mysql servers, tomcat servers, compute servers).
How do you boot your hosts? All network boots (PXE, DHCP).
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 181M, 161
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 86
What is the business of your company/organisation? Faculty of Science, Vrije Univeresiteit Amsterdam
Additional comments:
We use FAI to install all our Linux machines. Years ago we were mainly
using Solaris and used Jumpstart in a similar way. In our first setup
of Linux we used Redhat with Kickstart. I was very happy when I
discovered FAI. It took me some time to convince the management, but
starting with Debian sarge we switched over to Debian/FAI.
We also use FAI sometimes in sysinfo mode for diagnostic purposes.
From: Ronny Aasen, fai +@+ aasen = cx
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:52:35 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 10 now, 15 in immidiate future
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain debian lenny kernel -686
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers for LTSP, mail, NX and diskless boot server.
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card:
type of network card: mostly intel onboard
PXE, DHCP: using pxelinux, and isc dhcpd3
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes. because i am picky about the harware i buy
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no. nfs
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 772K, 116
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 41
What is the business of your company/organisation? regional norwegian consulting company,
ISP, Hosting and service provider. Fjordane IT
Additional comments:
For the initial deployment of, and keeping machines up to date using
softupdate of mostly identical machine with a few individual issues at
separate geografical locations.
From: Birgit Kattner. Birgit dot Kattner aadd hrz.uni-giessen dot de
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:18:20 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~20 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.17~lenny1 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Default kernel, 2.6.26-1-486 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP, Network Card: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 66MB, 97 files How many files do you have in ../config/files? 38 What is the business of your company/organisation? Hochschulrechenzentrum der Universität Gießen
Additional comments: Automated installation of debian 5.0 Desktops; /home with autofs mounted. FAI works fine!
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 17:08:55 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? single cluster with 8 nodes (so far) Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 Which version are you using as your install kernel? linux-image-2.6.18-fai-kernels_1_amd64.deb Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? compute cluster How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 504K, #60 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 14 What is the business of your company/organisation? Institute for Hydromechanics, University of Karlsruhe
Additional comments: We like the tool & help. Thanks!
From: Henning Fehrmann, henning. fehrmann {} AEI dod mpg dod de
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 12:33:04 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 1725
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom kernel 2.6.27
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, storage server, mgmt. server
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: yes
type of network card: e1000 (Intel 82573)
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Don't know, maybe
Which drivers are missing? Areca for storage nodes (I would guess)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 13M, 546
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 288
What is the business of your company/organisation? Research, Gravitational Waves,
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
Additional comments:
This cluster is called ATLAS.
Successfully Using PXEboot/Dosimage (40MB!) to flash BIOS, CMOS,
init IPMI cards, NICs and HD firmware
Top500: 58th in June 2008 world wide with 1340 nodes
4th in June 2008 in Germany
From: Jens Strohschnitter, Jens.Strohschnitter rwz de
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:10:12 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 50 (2009 up to 250) Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.18-4-686 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? CF-Card miniservers How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? - Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? (/srv/fai) 3.8M, 92 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 47 What is the business of your company/organisation? RWZ Rhein-Main eG
Additional comments: Using FAI to an automated installation of debian 4.0 miniservers containing dhcp/smb and ftp-services based on CF-card minidesktop-systems.
From: Greg Cunningham, gregc =+= crafty.homelinux + net
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:37:37 +1100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~100 eventually Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.4 Which version are you using as your install kernel? generic ubuntu Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops with nfs /home & nis How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? um, I think so Do you manage your configuration space under version control? RCS How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 412K How many files do you have in ../config/files? 62 some redundant examples What is the business of your company/organisation? School network on behalf of a church, Romaine Park Christian Centre
Additional comments: I am setting up a edubuntu school network on behalf of the church I attend, Romaine Park Christian Centre It is made up from donated hardware in Tasmania (au) that is about to be packed into a container this weekend (along with a heap of tools & hospital equipment) & dispatched to a school in Ndola Zambia. It is a HP Proliant ML350 G3 server running 2 backend networks. Net#1 pxe-boots diskless ltsp clients - edubuntu ltsp straight from the jar. Net#2 pxe-boots fai. These desktops are 1.6GHz Acer Veriton 5600. They are capable of full multi-media & graphics that the ltsp network & server does poorly. I want the Net#2 desktops to end up configured with edubuntu-standard, nfs /home (roaming desktop) & nis domain login, so they end up with a similar environment to the ltsp network. If I get time & support... I plan to travel with a team to Ndola to assist with the installation June 2009. Also, time permitting we will be setting up a Internet kiosk for a mission in Ndola. It will be a dual backend similar to the school. Net#1 will be pxe-boot ltsp -kiosk. This is a local X running firefox in the root window (which is great until a pop-up comes along...) Net#2 will be a desktop pxe-boot fai build of a kiosk client that will be a locked-down ubuntu desktop. Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:56:50 +1000 Just a quick update. Our container arrived in Ndola Zambia near the end of June. We managed to squeeze in 76 destops, 5 servers 3 UPS + monitors amongst all the other gear. We leave Tasmania on the 16th July & start the rollout ~20th.
From: Axel Freyn, Axel-Freyn (A=) gmx.de and Bernd Kloss, kl =a= gym-anna.a.by.schule.de
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:37:46 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~60 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.10 Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops and notebooks How do you boot your hosts? Depends, Network card (different types) and CD Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, with subversion How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 4.7MB, #35 How many files do you have in ../config/files? 47 What is the business of your company/organisation? Secondary school, Gymnasium bei St. Anna in Augsburg
Additional comments: The desktops are distributed in the complete building (and normally switched off), and the laptops are only sometimes connected to the network. In order to be able to install updates, correct bugs and to install new software, we use the softupdate-functionallity of FAI. Whenever a machine is connected to the network, it checks regularly whether a softupdate is necessary (by comparing the version of the config-space with the local version) and starts (if necessary) a softupdate automatically in the background.
From: Vincent Fortier
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 10:53:51 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Regionally 100+
(although I'm presuming more than 4000+ nationally but ain't sure)
Which version of fai are you using? Hacked 3.2.10 on etch
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Old sarge FAI (on the way to be all removed): custom 2.6.23.17-CFS v24.1
Etch: 2.6.24-etchnhalf + backport 2.6.26 on dev systems
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops (75+), clusters (10-15), notebooks (1-5), regular servers (+-10)
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: mostly bnx2, e1000
using FAI-CD: when deploying nationally
from USB stick: when deploying nationally
BOOTP: no
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Now yes with 2.6.18 etch
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Used to... Not anymore... But I should :)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? less than 5 MB
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 109 files
What is the business of your company/organisation? Environment Canada, Severe weather forecast & aviation forecast for Canada.
Additional comments:
Since the past 2 years there as not been any manual installation due to
FAI (with the exception of the primary installation of the Etch fai server :)
Will be preparing migration to Lenny in 2009.
From: Gerhard Grygiel, gerhard.grygiel = desy.de
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:14:58 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? e.g. 200
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version are you using as your install kernel? 2.6.18-fai-kernels and selfmade 2.6.18-xen-fai both on i386 and amd64
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? server, farm, desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: YES rom-o-matic.net PXE
via network card: YES
type of network card: eepro100, 3c509, 3c59x, Broadcom, ...
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick: YES
BOOTP: NO
PXE, DHCP: YES
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? YES svn
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1,5G, #489
How many files do you have in ../config/files? 262
What is the business of your company/organisation? particle physics, research with synchrotron radiation, accelerators, DESY
Additional comments:
We're using FAI to install Debian and Ubuntu systems. The class config
is made via a central configuration tool which handles all other Un*x
and Linux flavours, too.
From: Joseph Rawson, umeboshi3 + gmail.com
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:34:51 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? at least ten (about 50 using setup_harddisks)
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.10 (had to patch it for parted)
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
the servers are for small businesses
they are firewalls using NAT
they run bind, dhcpd, squid and samba by default
some of them run email, apache, webdav
the small businesses aren't using desktops yet, so
the only desktops are the ones for the business (laptops also)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card:
type of network card:
PXE, DHCP: (most machines use pxe now)
(I make sure the servers use pxe before they are bought)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? not always on laptops
Which drivers are missing? mostly wireless, sometimes ethernet or ide
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? postgresql, subversion
I use a postgresql database that's exported imported from subversion repository
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 7.8MB, 1490 files
a lot of this is copies from suite to suite and many files are identical
most of this is xml, scripts and templates that are imported into database
How many files do you have in ../config/files? I'm using a different
config system, only using FAI to setup the disks
What is the business of your company/organisation? the company is out of business now
Additional comments:
I'm not really using FAI to install the systems. I'm only using it to
prepare the disks, and ready the system for the install. I really like the
way the disks are setup and formatted. It makes things a lot easier. My
focus hasn't been on installing a network full of machines. Rather, the
focus has been placed on installing (and sometimes updating) preconfigured
servers that are then placed in their environments. A fully automatic system
helps insure that the installation is complete and correct and helps keeps simple
mistakes from occuring, and helps to keep the systems predictable. This is
really important the more complex and involved that the configuration gets. I
often spend more time getting a correct configuration than I would by just installing
and configuring a server, but in the end, once the configuration is correct and has
been tested, I have an easier time making the next machine, or reinstalling another
machine that has died due to hardware problems.
From: Daniel Taschik
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:07:54 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? plain Debian
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? virtual Machines and one Desktop PC
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: yes
type of network card: virtual/ethernet 100mbit
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? no
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
What is the business of your company/organisation? HPI at the university of Potsdam
Additional comments:
The installation was part of a seminar workhop supervised by Martin von Löwis
From: Oleg Roitburd
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 15:18:27 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ca. 3000
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 for Debian/Etch, 2.8.4 for Debian/Sarge, 3.2.4+svn4837 for Ubuntu/Hardy
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Custom kernel 2.4.32 for Etch&Sarge, Generic for Ubuntu
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
Webserver with apache + php
Java Application-Server
Mysql, Mail, DNS Server
HTTP Cache Server
NFS Filer, Loadbalancer
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: tg3, e100, e1000, pcnet32
using FAI-CD: no
from USB stick: no
BOOTP: no
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? In Ubuntu it does work. Our Custom kernel does it also
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? NO
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3.5 MB
How many files do you have in ../config/files? Etch: 590, Sarge: 2166
What is the business of your company/organisation? Lycos Europe
is one of the leading European internet destinations operating a
pan-European network of websites in eight languages. The company's
combination of search, communication services, content channels,
Internet access, homepage building and online communities addresses a
wide range of target groups.
Additional comments:
Great Software :-)
Most hosts are VM's. We have nearly 250 blades running ESX server. Each
blade runs up to 10 instances of Debian. And about 100 on nativ
hardware. IBM Blades and Dell Poweredge.
From: Owen Shoemaker, oshoemaker +@= flektor-inc dot. com
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:31:02 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 600 hosts with 4 installs of fai Which version of fai are you using? 3.2 Which version are you using as your install kernel? Basic Ubuntu kernel 2.6.24.18.20 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Web servers, rails application servers, Mysql DB servers, FAI servers, DNS servers, LDAP servers, etc... How do you boot your hosts? PXE/DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes, with the only exception being a couple raid controllers. That was easy to fix. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, with puppetd and SVN What is the business of your company/organisation? A web 2.0 media mashup tool, Flextor
Additional comments: We install a lab environment, dev environment, and a production environment with an a and b side. It is a web 2.0 media mashup tool. Started the ops side of the company about 1.5 years ago. Lots of ruby on rails, flash, media, etc...
From: Olivier Le Thanh Duong, olivier {} lethanh d_ot be>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:16:55 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~80, 30 of them on Ubuntu Dapper
on a old FAI installation and the rest on Ubuntu Hardy in a newer installation
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.1-0ubuntu2~ppa2~gutsy1
Which version are you using as your install kernel? Default ubuntu Kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Shared Desktop computer for the students
> How do you boot your hosts? A FAI-CD which boot on NFS.
> Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
> Which drivers are missing? None
> Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, as a BZR repository
> How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2.0M, 281
>How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 26
What is the business of your company/organisation? Computers room for the students, (Free University of Brussels)
Department of Computer Science, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Additional comments:
We use an optical fiber network which is why we didn't use PXE but I'm
planning on reconsidering this when I get more time.
The homes are shared over NFS, students can acess their files from a
separate server via SFTP.
From: Goesta Smekal, goesta | smekal + at
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:09:30 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? currently ~ 50, >150 when finished
Which version of fai are you using?
2.8.4 (Ubuntu Breezy Badger), historical
2.10 (Ubuntu Dapper Drake), produktion
3.2.4 (Ubuntu Hardy Heron), in development
Which version are you using as your install kernel?
Breezy: default OS Kernel
Dapper: custon built vanilla 2.6.17
Hardy: default Ubuntu Kernel 2.6.24
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, Fileserver (in branch offices)
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: as iso on CD
via network card: yes
type of network card: various 3Com, RTL81*, D-Link ...
PXE, DHCP: in development for hardy
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no
Which drivers are missing? serial ATA on several hosts
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, git
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 349MB, 348 files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 125
What is the business of your company/organisation? NPO, social services, Wiener Hilfswerk
Additional comments:
We use FAI mainly to rollout our Linux desktops and manage software on
these. Branch offices also get their fileservers set up by FAI.
From: Ralf Spenneberg, ralf : spenneberg net
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:18:49 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? I regularly install 16 hosts using fai.
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.13
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops used for training purposes
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: all
type of network card: Built-in e100
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick:
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP: yes, PXE is used for all.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Currently yes.
Which drivers are missing? None.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Currently no.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 344k, 47
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 39
What is the business of your company/organisation? Linux training and consulting, OpenSource Training Ralf Spenneberg
Additional comments:
These are training machines. The install happens weekly.
Fai is an easy way to setup the clients for the training classes. I
use Fai for Debian and Ubuntu, while I use Kickstart and Autoyast for
Fedora and Suse.
From: Philipp Grau, phgrau _a_ zedat dot fu-berlin.de
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 14:07:37 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 110
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Virtually all kinds of hardware (HP DL380,
FSC-Workstations, HP-Bladecenter, Old-Style-PCs), with all kinds of software...
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: Yes
type of network card: bnx2, tg3
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick:
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP: Yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing? None
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, SVN
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 91Mbytes, 300 Files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 216
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Computer Center (ZEDAT)
From: Andrew Janke, a dot janke =+= gmail + com>
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 07:30:06 +1000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~400 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.7 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom build Ubuntu 2.6.22 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes How do you boot your hosts? PXE+DHCP or USB stick. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Nope. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 824K, 202 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 22 What is the business of your company/organisation? medical imaging research, McConnell Brain Imaging Center and Centre for Magnetic Resonance
Additional comments: We use FAI to install Medical Imaging cluster computing machines and for the affiliated desktop machines that users of the cluster(s) use. The most amusing part to get going has been to bootstrap the various new Ubuntu flavours as they come out. We try to stay on the bleeding edge so perhaps this is our problem! We have also shifted from doing all the config with FAI and softupdate to doing the initial install with FAI (install, base packages, SSH root keys, network setup) and then from there maintaining everything with cfengine2.
From: Volker Epting
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:32:58 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~100, 82 desktops, 10 measurement systems, at the moment 8 server Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? plain Debian etch kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, all kind of servers, small measurement-systems with VIA epic boards How do you boot your hosts? mostly with PXE, DHCP sometimes I use a floppy when PXE/DHCP doesn't work Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes, in all cases Do you manage your configuration space under version control? not at the moment :-( How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 305K, 75 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 15 files What is the business of your company/organisation? Research
Additional comments: I use fai to install standard debian basic systems. Most of the adaptation to our environment is placed in self created debian packages.
From: Ralf Tomczak, noemail @ mobile.de
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 10:55:26 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Approx. 600 hosts Which version of fai are you using? Still on Woody, fai 2.2.3 On Sarge, fai 2.8.6 (possibly patched by Linux AG - corebiz) Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom build kernel 2.6.21 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Webserver, Database server, Mailserver and a bunch of misc server. In more detail: Webserver (Apache, Tomcat), Database server (MySQL), Mailserver (Postfix) How do you boot your hosts? BOOTP, PXE, DHCP Do you manage your configuration space under version control? CVS How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? Woody: 1.1G, 3500 files Sarge: 38M, 3090 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? Woody: 3036 Sarge: 2622 What is the business of your company/organisation? mobile.de, a marketplace for new and used cars
Additional comments: We just use FAI for setting up all of our linux servers on the production sites as well pre-production. It's a pretty convenient way of doing it.
From: Sebastien Varrette, sebastien dot varrette -a t- uni.lu
Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 15:00:41 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 19 Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? plain Debian kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes + NFS server How do you boot your hosts? via network card, using PXE, DHCP. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes, yet the ethernet interface are switch - a specialization of /etc/udev/ rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules is required Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 115M, 137 How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 54 What is the business of your company/organisation? University of Luxembourg
From: Derrell Lipman, derrell.lipman ,at, backlottech com
Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 10:22:42 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 100 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 and 3.1.8 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? linux appliance How do you boot your hosts? via network card on current hardware; using CD on antique hardware, to PXE,DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Custom kernel being used Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 4,4GB, 73 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 18, but many files are added/modified via hooks and scripts as well What is the business of your company/organisation? LifeLine-DVD intelligent backup appliance BacklotTech.com
From: TOUZEAU DAVID, david .touzeau +a+d+ fr.kaspersky .com
Date: Wed, 07 May 2008 14:28:23 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? If it working, using FAI has public mode
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.18
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Mail server/web server
How do you boot your hosts?
using FAI-CD: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yep.
Which drivers are missing? Currently no drivers missing
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 200 mb
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 4
What is the business of your company/organisation? artica
Additional comments:
Provide an installation CD without human intercation for install a fully mail server
From: Fabian Haupt, fhaupt X informatik.uni-wuerzburg dot de
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:54:57 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 54 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? plain Debian kernel 2.6.18-6-686 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, servers How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yup Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, subversion How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 134 MB, 174 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 122 What is the business of your company/organisation? University installation: Labs in the mathematics departments of the university of Wuerzburg.
Additional comments: It replaced a gentoo setup with Rembotoolkit (now at IBM)
From: Laurent Coustet, ed =@ debian-fr dod net
Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:36:13 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 100
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Only desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: sometimes
via network card: almost always
type of network card: built-in (SIS, RTL, Intel, ...)
using FAI-CD: never tried
from USB stick: never tried
BOOTP: uh?! :)
PXE, DHCP: as "via network card"
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No.
Mostly because machines we buy are too recent, and network / SATA
drivers are ofen too old in vanilla.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No. But
It'll comme very soon as now I'm not the only one to modify the configuration space :)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 36M, 970
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 908
What is the business of your company/organisation? Software and hardware products for biological analysis laboratories in France
Clarisys informatique
Additional comments:
We use FAI for all desktop computers we give to our customers. We
receive machines from the manufacturer, then, we plug machines on the
network then, they boot FAI. We then choose which CLASS to use, in
function of the customer, then, it's automatically installed/configured.
Ready for shipping :)
From: Ulrich Kortenkamp Ulrich.Kortenkamp = ph-gmuend = de
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:44:37 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~20 Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Ubuntu-Kernel: Ubuntu 2.6.20-16.32-generic Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No Which drivers are missing? drivers for HP hardware (in particular the smartcard keyboard) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 46M, 908 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 909 files, 798 files in /srv/fai/config/files/opt What is the business of your company/organisation? University of Education, Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd
From: Sebastian Hetze, s.hetze _at= linux-ag do. com
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 11:42:33 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? >>1000
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.6
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom 2.6.20
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? all
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: all
using FAI-CD: X
from USB stick:
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP: X
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 456K, 89 files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 27 files
What is the business of your company/organisation? Linux Information Systems AG
Additional comments:
We use FAI as vital part of our software and configuration
management. Together with cfengine, we install and configure
all CoreBiz (Ubuntu-based) systems.
We use LDAP to manage installation profiles. FAI classes,
variables, package lists and disk configs are derived
dynamically from the installation targets LDAP entry.
From: Benoit Mortier, benoit.mortier ,at, opensides do_t be
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:39:49 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 24 Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? fai-kernels on etch amd64 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP: X Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no, under ldap with GOsa How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? around 100K How many files do you have in ../fai/files? around 50 classes and lots of templates What is the business of your company/organisation? IT consulting in free software OpenSides.be
Additional comments: This installation was done for a customer. EDF R&D They are the French National Electricity company FAI is mainly used for deploying cluster node and distribution servers, they have now a gui - GOsa2 - To deploy their development clusters
From: Gerald Klinkl
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:53:18 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? plain Debian kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? notebooks, desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick:
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP: x
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? smartcard reader on notebooks (FSC Lifebook's E8010)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 400K, 49
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 14
What is the business of your company/organisation? Program- and System Engineering, Consulting
Additional comments:
Set up (and reset) Linux hosts in the test lab.
From: Maxim kovgan
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:01:59 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~55
Which version of fai are you using? 3.2.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? plain Debian kernel, 2.6.18
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card:y
type of network card:Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM/CA/CAM Ethernet Controller (rev 01)
using FAI-CD:
from USB stick:
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP:X
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? y
Which drivers are missing? -
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? svn
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3.0M, 90
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 16
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, university, Technion, Computer Science dept. Distributed Systems Lab
Additional comments:
nice package, thanks for the help in IRC.
From: Lou Ruppert, lruppert aatt ucf .org
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:28:47 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 27 Which version of fai are you using? 2.10.1ubuntu1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom 2.6.17 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, mail web file servers, notebooks How do you boot your hosts? using FAI-CD or from custom GRUB 'reinstall via FAI' entry Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 180M, 372 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 104 files. What is the business of your company/organisation? Church, University Christian Fellowship
Additional comments: We use FAI to build all Linux systems. This allows less skilled workers to perform systems builds. We maintain machines in two countries, plus newer laptops, machines donated to church members, computer lab machines, and all of our servers with this system. It works great, and takes the guesswork out of machine builds. It also allows us to upgrade a machine clearly. (Back up data, perform build with same profile against newer repo and newer FAI version.)
From: Steffen Bornemann, steffen.bornemann =a=t htw- aalen. de
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 09:29:22 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 120
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.6
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Linux debian 2.6.18
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: nvidia nforce chip
using FAI-CD: yes
from USB stick: no
BOOTP: no
PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 67 MB, 163 files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 78 files
What is the business of your company/organisation? Hochschule Aalen
Additional comments:
Wir benutzen FAI seit einem Jahr für die Installation der Pool- und
Laborrechner. Es gibt zwei unterschiedliche Rechnertypen und mehrere
unterschiedliche FAI-Installationen. Der Großteil der Installationen
erfolgt über PXE+DHCP, einige ältere Rechner werden über eine Boot-CD
angesprochen, die sich dann mit dem NFS-Server verbindet (die
eigentliche Installation erfolgt dann wieder über das Netzwerk).
From: Per Foreby, perf at+at ddg dot lth.se
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 16:07:52 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 149
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? fai-kernels 1.17+etch2
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktop lab computers
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: y
type of network card: forcedeth, sk98lin, 3c59x, e100
using FAI-CD: y
from USB stick:
BOOTP:
PXE, DHCP: y
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 39M, 239 files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 192
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University, Sweden
Additional comments:
After using solaris jumpstart for many years, fai was a very natural
choice when we made the transition to linux in 2004. It was in fact one
of the main reasons for choosing debian. The other reasons were
debians stability and total lack of commercial interests.
We use fai to install lab computers, mainly used by computer engineering
students. All configuration after the initial install is done using
softupdate to maintain a consistent installation. Softupdate is done
manually with cssh.
Configuration is preferably done with cfengine scripts to avoid too much
editing when upgrading to a new debian version.
For non debian software (firefox, thunderbird, matlab, maple, sun jdk,
specific eclipse versions and more), we create local debian packages and
add them to our own repository.
From: anonymous, info =@- servercrew dot. de
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 18:25:31 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? I installed round about 500 hosts with it. It will be more and more.
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom 2.6 kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? root servers for customers, basic install, only with ssh.
How do you boot your hosts?
PXE, DHCP: X
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Nope, i use basicly the .deb packet
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 26Mb, 53
What is the business of your company/organisation? Small ISP which provides Dedicted server, managed Firewall. www.servercrew.de
From: Tomas Ögren, stric add_ cs.umu dod se
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 20:54:18 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 70
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 currently, 2.8.4sarge1 before
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom 2.6
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, login servers
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: tg3, rtl8169, e1000, ...
using FAI-CD: no
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE and DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? -
Which drivers are missing? -
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Should ;)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 40M, 162 (of which 37M/13 files are .deb/.tar)
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? ~150
What is the business of your company/organisation? Department of Computing Science
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:18:48 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~20 Which version of fai are you using? 3.2 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? own kernel, 2.6.22-cks1 from kernel.org Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? webservers/mailservers/... How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no Which drivers are missing? SATA drivers missing for PIIX "ata_piix" Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no What is the business of your company/organisation?-
Additional comments: adding LVM in the normal disk_config would be nice
From: John Heim, jheim .ad@. math.wisc dot .edu
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:52:21 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Approximately 60
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom built 2.6.18 kernel patched with speakup
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, laptops
How do you boot your hosts?
using FAI-CD
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? N/A (using custom kernel)
Which drivers are missing? N/A
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.1 Mb
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 81
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education,Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin
Additional comments:
I'm blind so I have written a script to query our mysql database for
configuration setting. This script then prints class names that
determine how the install will be performed. For example, if a flag is
set in the database indicating that the machine should be dual-boot,
Windows and linux, the disk partitioning preserves the first existing
partition. This way I don't even have to have a monitor on a machine
when performing an FAI install.
From: Thomas Böhme, MC-Wetter GmbH
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:21:25 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 39
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 and 2.8.4sarge1 for sarge
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
i386 sarge -> vmlinuz-2.6.16.1-fai from kernel.org
amd64 sarge -> 2.6.17.7 from Kernel.org
i386 etch -> vmlinuz-2.6.18-fai-kernels from fai-kernel package
amd64 etch -> vmlinuz-2.6.18-fai-kernels-amd from fai-kernel package
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? certain types of servers
Many different Webserver setups
normal server systems running just some perl and java
3 different MySQL database HA-Cluster
OpenVPN Server
FAI-Server itself (including Bind9, DHCP, NFS, ATFPTD, SVN, LDAP, CVS, Nagios and a lot more)
a second Fai-Server in netherlands
FTP-Server
Mail-Server (dev. state)
File-Server NFS/Samba (dev. state)
- How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: intel, broadcom, 3com
using FAI-CD: no
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE and DHCP
- Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
For Debian etch (i386/amd64) it does
For Debian sarge (i386) it does
For Debian sarge (amd64) I build a new one from kernel.org, but
maybe just because I tried with i386 fai-kernel. So I cannot tell
for sure. But there was a driver missing (I think for
SCSI-Controller Dell Perc5) only available in 2.6.17 and above.
- Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, we use SVN.
- How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? Sarge: 207M, #818, then Etch: 660k, #138
- How many files do you have in ../fai/files? sarge: 591, etch: 83
What is the business of your company/organisation? weather information and distribution meteogroup
Additional comments:
FAI is used here to setup each Linux system, which is gonna be new or
upgraded to debian etch. So there will be more in the future. Most of
our systems are in a HA setup of 2 machines using heartbeat and
drbd. There are atm two classes that include 5 hosts each.
From: Mrfai, fai _ad_ informatik dotr uni dash koeln .de
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:16:15 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Currently 22 hosts Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.18 from fai-kernels 1.17, and plain 2.6.18 kernel with initrd Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, notebooks, web servers, file server How do you boot your hosts? all with PXE type of network card: onboard Intel, e1000 and 3com Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yep Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yep, subversion How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 20M, 209 How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 81 What is the business of your company/organisation? education and research, departement of computer science, university of cologne
Additional comments: The actual number of hosts I've installed is uncountable, since I'm doing a lot of installations for testing purpose. Additionally I'm also using the newest FAI versions before they become available ;-)
From: Andreas Hirczy, ahi xadx itp dot tugraz.at
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:44:18 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 4 so far, about 80 are planned
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.6 from fai-kernels 1.17+etch2
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, AFS Server
architetures are i386 and amd64
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: -
via network card: yes
type of network card: 3Com, Broadcom, Intel, ...
using FAI-CD: no, but will try, since not all our PCs support PXE
reliable
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE/DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, subversion
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 82 kB, 31 files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 5
What is the business of your company/organisation? education & reseach TU Graz, Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics
Additional comments:
I perform only a very basic installation - target is a text mode only
install, with openssh-server, cfengine2, krb5, and AFS client working. I have
quite a bit of cfengine and perl scripting to complete this to either a
workstation, computing node or AFS file server. After gaining some
experience with FAI I plan to install ready to use AFS file servers without
any postinstall steps.
I keep some (mostly up to date) notes on FAI.
From: Remi Bergsma
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:02:04 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 80 (and counting..) Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4sarge1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build 2.4 and 2.6 kernels Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? web, mail and database servers. Installed all nodes for our cluster which is used for hosting websites. How do you boot your hosts? PXE and DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No Which drivers are missing? broadcom tg3 nic driver (I've built a new kernel for it to work) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 14M, 109 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 54 What is the business of your company/organisation? Webhosting and development of Website Management software. (LATUS) MoveNext
Additional comments: We are using FAI to install dedicated servers used for web- mail- and databasehosting. We just plug them into the install-network and a few minutes later the install is ready. It works great! Thank you for creating FAI. It's a wonderful piece of software which has saved me a LOT of time! Thank you very much.
From: Alan Wood, wooda @=@ westminster _ ac _uk
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:19:37 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 50
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.4.xx
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: * (occasionally)
via network card: *
type of network card: Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet
(on-board on Dell PCs)
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE/DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? Dell FP1097FP flat-panel display is not recognised (but it is if you load debian from CD)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 364k, 52 files
(plus a few hundred megabytes of stuff installed by script in /usr/local/share/fai/scripts/LAST)
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 14
What is the business of your company/organisation? Higher Education, University of Westminster, School of Informatics
Additional comments: PCs are used by students in
networking, OS and sofware installation laboratory experiments. These
get messed up by student installations every day, or have different
operating systems installed, and so need reloading with fresh copies
of Debian frequently.
We may stop using FAI, as there is a fault in the v3 installation that
I cannot diagnose; if the documentation were there, I may be able to
fix it. The lack of up-to-date documentation is more important than
releasing v3.2!
From: Russ Allbery, rra =@ stanford _dod edu
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:11:28 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 450 production hosts Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? We're using the 2.6.18 FAI kernel Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? servers and some desktops How do you boot your hosts? PXE and DHCP Our systems are all either Dell or Sun server hardware and we install them all via PXE and DHCP. We don't use floppies or CDs if we can possibly help it. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, of course. CVS. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 680KB and 136 files. How many files do you have in ../fai/files? Only 12, since we avoid using fcopy and Cfengine where we can avoid it. What is the business of your company/organisation? Stanford University, a private teaching and research university.
Additional comments: We run all of our core infrastructure (Kerberos, AFS, web, DNS, etc.) on Debian and do all Debian installs via FAI. So almost entirely servers, although some of us do install our desktop systems via FAI. We don't have any clusters yet, beyond some simple remote timeshare systems, but when we do we'll install them via FAI. Note that we use one system to FAI build sarge and etch for both i386 and amd64 systems, so our setup is somewhat different and a little more flexible than most FAI systems. We also use bundle to do install-time actions instead of Cfengine or fcopy, since it's a lot easier to deal with. See: http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/bundle/ to see what bundle is.
From: Katharina Drexel, Genua GmbH
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 12:37:14 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~100
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.7
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.20.1 (self-built)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Workstations, servers, standalones (all i386 + Etch)
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: -
via network card: -
type of network card: tigon, 3com, ...
using FAI-CD: -
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP + isolinux-CDROM
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no
Which drivers are missing? Tigon (tg)
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (cvs)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1,8 MB,
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 254
What is the business of your company/organisation? German IT security specialist, GeNUA
Gesellschaft für Netzwerk- und Unix-Administration
From: Frank Doepper, fd ** taz * de
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 15:37:33 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~10 so far, but 130 are planned
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.18 from fai-kernels_1.17+etch2 and
custom built 2.6.18 (with Fibrechannel support)
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: Yes.
type of network card: Builtin Intel et al.
using FAI-CD: Yes.
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE, DHCP.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? In most cases, yes.
Which drivers are missing? qla2xxx, lpfc
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.2M, 109
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 43
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, server (all kinds of), notebooks
What is the business of your company/organisation? Newspaper: taz, die tageszeitung
From: Tim Cutts, tjrc ad sanger dit ac dit uk
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:07:50 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Approximately 1000 Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8 for etch, 2.8.4sarge1 for sarge machines Which version of fai-kernels are you using? For etch, the standard FAI 2.6, kernel from fai-kernels 1.17, On sarge custom built kernels. Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? i386 desktops, i386 and amd64 cluster nodes How do you boot your hosts? PXE, using a DHCP server resident on a different machine (we have a central DHCP server for all operating systems and architectures) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Almost. Some very recent graphics hardware is problematic (can't remember the precise model) Which drivers are missing? Nothing missing, but in some cases the kernel doesn't work properly and hangs, but I think this is the fault of buggy BIOSes on the affected machines (HP Deskpro dc7700) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, CVS How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 9.1 MB, 183 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 144 files What is the business of your company/organisation? Human genome and disease research The Sanger Institute
Additional comments: See also: Sanger
From: Holger Parplies, wopp _a_d parplies dod de
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 23:47:24 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? One test system so far,
at least 15 more to come once our setup is satisfactory
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6 from fai-kernels 1.17+b1
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: Intel EtherExpress PRO/100
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE + DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not so far, but good idea :-).
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 564KB, 86 files so far
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 28 (so far)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Play goods and tinkering specialist shop
Additional comments:
One test system so far, at least 15 more to come once our setup is
satisfactory (we're migrating from SuSE to Debian etch, cleaning up
our installation policy, and using proprietary and own software needing
to be packaged, so there's some work to do).
Our main goal when using FAI is to be able to rebuild a host in case
of a hardware defect with a minimum of attention required.
Aside from that, the transition from SuSE to Debian is bound to be much
less painful if you can have the whole network complete it in a matter
of something like 20 minutes. No, we won't do *all* at once ;-), but we
obviously won't need to manually install each computer individually.
From: Steffen Grunewald, AEI MPG
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 12:17:28 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? more than 800 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4sarge1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.4.27 for Sarge installs, 2.6.17 for Etch Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? compute cluster nodes, arch: i386, alpha, amd64 How do you boot your hosts? PXE; netboot for Alpha Do you manage your configuration space under version control? CVS How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 56 MB How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 549 (no kidding!) What is the business of your company/organisation? Gravitational wave research Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
Additional comments: see also Merlin Cluster
From: Brian Gannon, bgannon ad gmail_dod_ com
Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 14:13:11 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 200+
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8 -> 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom 2.6 (2.6.19.4)
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers and cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: No
via network card: Yes
type of network card: intel e1000
using FAI-CD: Yes
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP/PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Custom kernel so yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? CVS
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 3.1, 74
What is the business of your company/organisation? Artificial Intelligence driven stock market trading
Additional comments:
We primarily use it to build out cluster nodes. It provides an EASY
way to reimage and add machines.
Most of the FAI boxes are used in the computer cluster for AI Training.
From: Jonathon Blumenthal, jonblumenthal =ad_ gmail dod com
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:34:28 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Currently 200+, in the future it will be 1000+ Which version of fai are you using? 2.10.5 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.16 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cluster nodes, web server, and DNS How do you boot your hosts? PXE Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes Do you manage your configuration space under version control? SVN How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 5.6M, 1287 How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 1225 What is the business of your company/organisation?
Additional comments: We are using FAI to deploy a large scale highly distributed HA cluster.
From: Jeffrey Stolte
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:47:37 -0600
How many hosts have you installed using fai? sarge: 380, etch: 23
Which version of fai are you using? sarge: 2.8.4, etch: 3.1.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? sarge: custom build 2.6, etch: Debian package 2.6
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, laptops, servers, and cluster nodes (Mostly all Dell hardware)
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: mostly 3-Com, Intel, Broadcom
using FAI-CD: X (under sarge, would use under etch if available)
PXE, DHCP: X
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? sarge: no, etch: yes, so far
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? somewhat, using RCS
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)?
sarge: 70MB, 246 files
etch: 56MB, 180 files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files?
sarge: 38 files
etch: 39 files
What is the business of your company/organisation? Atmospheric Research
From: anonymous, dot nz
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 22:06:46 +1200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 10 so far
Which version of fai are you using? 2.10.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.16-fai-kernels
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Stand-alone small control systems.
Not quite embedded, because off-the-shelf PC hardware is used.
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: mini-ITX motherboard on-board ethernet
using FAI-CD: no
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: yes(?), yes, yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes, subversion
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 25MB, 300 files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 100
What is the business of your company/organisation? Production of autonomous control
Additional comments:
Small computer systems (mini-ITX) are used for autonomous control, with
a Linux base and proprietory application software. FAI is used to
install all software during system assembly.
FAI is a prety good design which is very flexible. As a downside of
this, it is also very complex. The FAI manual is too short, and it was
not straightforward to use. In my case, 2 different systems are
installed (same hardware), which under-utilises FAI's capabilities by a
long shot. Consequently much time has been wasted setting up FAI, though
obviously a perhaps not so good decision of my predecessor isn't FAI's
fault. I'll remove FAI from the project if I can. E.g. autoyast may not
be as capable, but would have been much faster and sufficient for the
job. Also, FAI is mono-cultural (it only works with Debian), and I
object to sinking a lot of effort into something non-portable because it
reduces my flexibility (of moving away from Debian in this case). You
could say the same about autoyast, however the effort investment with
that is much smaller, and it's not the only alternative by far - cloning
a disk springs to mind, distro-independent, and disk space costs dirt
compared with engineering time.
Thanks for the software!
From: Norbert Tretkowski, tretkowski aadd ip-exchange dot de
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:33:22 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 500, growing fast Which version of fai are you using? 2.10.5 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom build kernel 2.6 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? all kind of servers (web, mail, etc.) How do you boot your hosts? PXE Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 4 MB, 552 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 32 What is the business of your company/organisation? ISP, Server Housing, IP Exchange GmbH
Additional comments: Installation of customer servers. We are installing Debian 3.1, Debian 4.0 and OpenSuSE 10.1, each for i386 and amd64. Some pictures of our locations: 1 2
From: Toomas Tamm
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:08:56 +0300
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Currently about 10; a cluster of 16 is waiting to be installed.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4sarge1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom build 2.6.18
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
(eg.: desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, web server, mail server,...)
All of the above :-)
Actually I have not installed any notebooks, webservers or mail servers
yet, but it is only a matter of time. When they need an upgrade, it will
be done with FAI.
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: X
via network card:
type of network card:
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: X
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes.
Using subversion. I consider version control essential.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 714K, 68 files
Please note that Subversion causes a huge overhead in the configuration
space. I guess the actual files are about 20-30 kbytes.
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 6
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, computational chemistry (read: number crunching) group,
Tallinn University of Technology
Additional comments:
Floppy boot is essential since I have one type of netcard (dmfe driver
under linux) which is ill-supported by rom-o-matic and I have no other option
than put a full kernel on floppy.
I have set up FAI to install a copy of the install kernel on all
hosts automatically, and add that to the Grub menu. So as long as
I do not upgrade the install kernel, I can do a re-install via
a simple disk-reboot.
I think these (the files in fai/files) came from the demo setup which
I used to start my development. I rarely (if at all) use the files
feature. The systems are customized at the "scripts" stage using
cfengine. The cfengine configuration file is > 1000 lines , 47 kbytes
and about 100 config files are installed by it.
I have ever only used the (new) debian-installer once - to get the
first installation server off the ground. I found it a step back
from the old install-floppies when advanced changes were the goal.
However, I had planned to switch to FAI already then, and I have
never had to regret.
From: Tobias Doerffel
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 14:30:55 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 80 at one school and 100 at another school
Which version of fai are you using? since two years always the newest. Currently 3.1.7
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.6 from fai-kernels
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops, in the past also file servers, proxy servers and firewalls
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: for old firewall computers
via network card: all desktops
type of network card: VIA Rhine, Intel Ethernet Pro 100
using FAI-CD: no
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yep
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2,5 MB, 445
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 375
What is the business of your company/organisation? education,
Agricola-Gymnasium Chemnitz and Andre-Gymnasium Chemnitz
Additional comments:
The same FAI setup is used in two school ich Chemnitz. Using a
specific FAI class for every school we manage the differences between
those setups. One school is using AFS/Kerberos the other is using NFS/LDAP.
From: Tobias Herziger
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:44:27 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approx. 50 yet, will be around 200 in a couple of months. Which version of fai are you using? 2.10 will probably change to 3.x this year. Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build (kernel-image-2.6.18-cxo) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? DELL x86 servers (web, database, cms, monitoring, mail, etc) How do you boot your hosts? network card: Intel e1000 / DHCP,PXE Which drivers are missing? megaraid (>2.20) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? not yet How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 4.6M in 197 Files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 90 What is the business of your company/organisation? CHIP Xonio Online GmbH
From: Dan McGrath
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:11:35 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Well, all my hosts have current been inside a VMWare machine so I dont know if the numbers mean as much as say seperate machines with slightly different hardware. Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4sarge1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? using the default 2.4 kernel How do you boot your hosts? vmware boos via PXE from network card Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? (eg.: desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, web server, mail server,...) What is the business of your company/organisation? production network for an auction business.
Additional comments: So far it seems like something I could find a use for. Many people (myself included) find reinstall's to be a time consuming process. What makes this worse is when you need to reinstall when your not prepared for it. I believe FAI helps by making you put in the "hard work" at the begining of your network by getting all of the replication, installation and other routines implemented and tested ahead of time. The result if that when you finally do need to reinstall a machine, chances are you just need to pop in a boot disk and walk away.
From: Emil Gorter, emil (ad) ripe net
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:55:21 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approx. 55
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1ubuntu1 (shipped with Edgy)
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.17 from fai-kernels 1.12ubuntu1
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Dell Optiplex GX280 desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: (onboard) Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5751
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP + PXE + tftp (no BOOTP)
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes, though FAI 2.10.1ubuntu1 (Dapper) which I tried earlier
gave me problems with USB keyboards.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No, but I have put some files under RCS
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 6.3M, 75
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 39
What is the business of your company/organisation? RIPE NCC
Additional comments:
Previously we installed Ubuntu Hoary using PXE and an old static image
on NFS. We kept the machines up-to-date using a script based on rsync.
This caused problems when adding packages on the rsync master.
Using FAI we update the package list for clients, and let the clients
perform a real aptitude install. This is much cleaner.
Using a partition hook I was able to backup user data to the network,
re-partition the disk, setup LVM and restore user data.
N.B.: I have bundled 215 /usr/local/ files (our own scripts and
stuff) in a tarball, as moving these into the config tree would get
messy.
From: Peter Gervai, grinapo ata gmail.com
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:32:34 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 18 Which version of fai are you using? 3.1.6 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? fai-kernels 1.15 (testing the config), custom built kernel 2.6 (final install) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? servers of any kind How do you boot your hosts? via network card: broadcom nxtreme2, PXE, DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? qla2xxx requires firmware image, and I'm not sure whether faikernel knows it at all. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 240k, 56 files What is the business of your company/organisation?ISP
Additional comments: Right now I'm installing IBM blade centers using fai, and struggling with softraid, lvm. Using Debian fai packages.
From: Christoph Schulthess, christoph dot schulthess ad post dot_ch
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 12:47:29 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ca. 100 Which version of fai are you using? 2.10.1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6.17 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, notebooks How do you boot your hosts? only using FAI-CD Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no: HP DL7100 freezes during boot process Do you manage your configuration space under version control? yes How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 12 GB How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 1628 What is the business of your company/organisation? A big yellow company in switzerland ;-)
From: Mathieu Rozieres
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:40:00 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 14
Which version of fai are you using? fai FAI 2.8.4sarge1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.13
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? web server, mail server, management server, ntp server, heartbeat cluster
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: N
via network card: Y
type of network card: Intel Pro
using FAI-CD: Y
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE & DHCP
Which version of fai-kernels are you using as your install kernel? custom build kernel 2.6
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing? LSI Megaraid, MPT Fusion
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? I tried but the Sarge version is broken using the CVS.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 412M, 442
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 223
What is the business of your company/organisation?French travel web portal
Additional comments:
Using FAI on production environnement with Debian Sarge.
I am looking to integrate it with RedHat ES
From: Raoul Borenius, borenius_dfn_de
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:05:24 +0100 (CET)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 15, but there will be more and we are installing all new hosts with fai.
Which version of fai are you using? fai 2.8.4sarge1, now migrating to 3.1.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.8.4sarge1: custom kernel
because of missing serial console support in fai-kernel-1.9.1sarge5, 3.1.5: fai-kernels-1.15
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
stand-alone webservers
stand-alone mailservers
cluster nodes for mailcluster
nfs-servers
no workstations so far
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: yes (a few hosts where network card has no boot prom)
via network card: yes
type of network card: mostly e100
using FAI-CD: no
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP and PXE, on SPARC DHCP only
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no, good idea...
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 752K, 136
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 40
What is the business of your company/organisation? DFN - Deutsches Forschungsnetz, Germany`s National Research and Education Network
Additional comments:
We use it to install i386, amd64 and sparc architectures.
On sparc you have to supply all fai-parameters at the firmware-level
since there is no such thing as PXE or similar on sparc.
From: Gavin Burris, ga5in __ psu.edu
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:08:29 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 12 hosts
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.4 from fai-kernels 1.8.2
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: rom-o-matic etherboot
via network card:
type of network card: Intel Corp. 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE, DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? All but nvidia graphics
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 17M, 54 files
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 22 files
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, Pennsylvania State University
Additional comments:
FAI has allowed me to install an entire scientific visualization cluster.
If a cluster node should fail, it can be replaced with a new node that
is booted with a single floppy and be up and running in fifteen minutes.
Website of the project. Pictures showing the Display and Cluster: (1) (2)
From: Paul Lussier, @_you_may_ask_for_it
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:38:43 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 300+ actual hosts. But these are re-FAI'ed
several times a month. Technically, we've FAI'ed many 1000s of hosts.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom build kernel 2.4.31.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Lab test systems, desktops, servers
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: Only if we must (most desktops are old enough to require this :(
via network card: Yes.
type of network card: Various Intel NICs, some Netgear, some broadcom-based.
using FAI-CD: Not yet, but we have big plans to.
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: Yes for all.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No.
Which drivers are missing? Qlogic Fibre Channel HBA drivers.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 15M, 139
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 32
What is the business of your company/organisation? Software engineering lab
Additional comments:
We maintain a software engineering development lab using FAI
extensively. Over 300 hosts are configured to install via FAI. Since
we also maintain our own debian repository, we use FAI to keep these
hosts all up to date with respect to all the "correct" packages.
Because of the number of systems, we incur a significant number of
hard drive failures, as well as require drive-size upgrades fairly
often. FAI is indispensible for getting a host back into the testing
infrastructure quickly and correctly!
By creating a 'refai' script which frobs the boot sector of the drive,
and setting our default BIOS configuration to boot first from the
internal hard drive, then the NIC, we've allowed our our developers to
"make a mess" of a machine and be able to quickly get it back in
"pre-mucking-with" order consistently, quickly, and predictably.
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 11:16:47 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? >1000
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1 and for old installation: 2.10.x
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? We need to use selfcompiled kernel because of missing drivers.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cluster (incl. Nodes), normal application servers (web/tomcat, mail, dns etc.)
How do you boot your hosts?
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: [X]
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No, it doesn't.
We are using areca raid host adapters and they are not available in original fai kernels.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes, via svn
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 2.7G / 18269
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 7004
From: Maurice Makaay, maurice.makaay @in te rn l.net
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 19:42:56 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Currently one test system
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.8
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cluster nodes. We
have virus / spam scanning systems, based on debian.
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: SUN X2100 ethernet port, supported by the module "forcedeth"
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE/DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes.
The SUN X2100 system is fully supported. I've had no troubles installing the system.
All I had to do was add forcedeth to /etc/modules during install to make the network
card work correctly after a reboot.
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not yet,
but it will be once this leaves the development stage.
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 480K in 37 files.
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 5 files. About the only
thing in there is the /etc/modules file for X2100 systems.
What is the business of your company/organisation? ISP in the Netherlands, InterNLnet BV
(hosting, mail, dial-in/dsl/fiber access, virtual provider services).
Additional comments:
We use FAI to bootstrap a minimal Debian installation and cfengine2 to
install all needed software and configure the systems.
Currently one test system, but we'll use it a lot more now we've set this up. As a start,
we'll bring up a new anti-spam/virus cluster. After that, we'll probably start upgrading
some existing Linux systems as well.
About our setup: we first installed a Debian system and then the fai packages. After that,
we copied all neccessary data (nfsroot, config space and /boot) to our dedicated
Sparc/Solaris system that is used for jumpstarting different kinds of systems. This
jumpstart environment already had a pxelinux boot environment, so we simply extended this
environment to support the FAI setup as well. Works like a charm!
From: Peter Brownell, greenman aatt muti.tv
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 17:16:21 -0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 15 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4sarge1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers and "cluster" nodes How do you boot your hosts? PXE and DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No Which drivers are missing? We use HP proliant boxes which needed the CCISS drivers Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Yes (Subversion) How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 1.6MB, 235 How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 140 What is the business of your company/organisation? LondonMarketing, "Destination marketing" for London, http://www.londontown.com
Additional comments: We use FAI primarily for configuration management and change control for our server infrastructure. Every configuration element of our servers is managed, and (almost) every box can be rebuilt automatically. Our webservers work in a IPVS cluster, a new server will install itself and download the webroot without any user interaction, we only need to tell our loadbalancer that it exists. The main machines that are not currently FAI'd are some of our bigger database servers, which use LVM - and we have not quite done enough work to get FAI and LVM to work nicely.
From: Andreas Jobs, Andreas.Jobs X@ ruhr -uni -bochum.de
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:05:11 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3 in production (1-2 for testing) Which version of fai are you using? 2.10.5 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build 2.6 kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? servers (RADIUS, login, proxy, web crawler) How do you boot your hosts? via network card PXE/DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? IIRC the driver for "BCM5703 Gigabit Ethernet" was mising (but I'm not sure) Do you manage your configuration space under version control? No. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 108 files 772K How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 44 What is the business of your company/organisation? Rechenzentrum Uni Bochum
From: Sebastian Schmitzdorff | sebastian . schmitzdorff hamburgnet . de
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:50:44 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 10+
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom 2.6.18.3
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? server, cluster nodes
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: X
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? NO
Which drivers are missing: LSI MegaRAID support is missing.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Sale and Integration
of professional server and storage systems. http://www.hamburgnet.de
Additional comments:
We are using FAI to install linux based customer machines.
It's easy to maintain and has saved us lots of time in the past.
Thanks a lot for creating this great tool.
For the future Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SLES support would be "nice to have".
From: Michal Svamberg, svamberg a|t civ.zcu.cz
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:43:26 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 441 computers
- 124 Debian 3.0/3.1 servers (87 regular server, 37 servers based on Xen).
- 290 workstations at 19 classrooms in 6 locations with dualboot (Linux+WinXP)
- 18 kiosks based on firefox
- 9 nodes at one cluster
Which version of fai are you using? We use 3 servers for FAI:
- 2x FAI server with 2.8.4 version of FAI (use 32bit and 64bit NFSROOT)
- 1x debian mirror (NFS gateway to AFS), no FAI package
Which version of fai-kernels are you using as your install kernel?
custom build kernel 2.6 and 2.6 with XEN patches,
all kernels are with openafs-modules package
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
- desktops (with gnome, openoffice, burning, browsers, java, matlab, ...)
- clusters (with openpbs)
- servers for openafs, camera, web, ldap, database, aplication, shell,
nocat, gateway/firewall, print, monitoring, ...
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: No, only for reinstalation
via network card: for workstation in public schoolrooms
type of network card: 3c509, tg3
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE and DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation? Centre for Information Technology,
Laboratory for Computer Science, University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic
Additional comments:
87 regular servers (AFS, DB, print, accounting, vpn, freeradius, gateways, etc.)
37 virtual servers based on Xen (FAI, print, wiki, freeradius, testing, etc.)
FAI infrastructure:
- workstation using PXE boot and sending FAI logs via email
- 2 FAI servers with NFSroot (every has 32bit + 64bit AMD nfsroot) with
AFS-NFS gateway for $FAI
- 1 NFS-AFS gateway (mirror mounting)
- mirror + $FAI at AFS
- 3 administrators (one is student), using CVS
Plan for next year:
- append 4 new classroom (about 60 computers)
- conversion some clusters at META Centrum (meta.cesnet.cz) from systemimager to FAI
Documentation about FAI instalation at University of West Bohemia. It's only in Czech language.
Do you have some nice pictures of your installation? Public lab Yet another FAIwork Big pics
From: Hans-J. Ullrich, hans. ullrich æd loop.de
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:30:20 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 3
Which version of fai are you using? 3.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Mailserver, webserver, desktop, notebook
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
using FAI-CD:yes
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no
Which drivers are missing? graphics card "I810"
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no
What is the business of your company/organisation?
IT-Consultance (this is my private) and government (this is where I am working)
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 10:20:54 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About a half dozen, but with many, many reinstalls.
Once every ten minutes is no exception since I'm debugging scripted installs at the moment.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6 kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All kinds of server and desktop.
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: Never.
via network card: Yes.
type of network card: TG3 driver works on it. I don'ask.
using FAI-CD: One machine too old and stupid to PXE-boot.
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: Yes. Most common method.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No. Our HP workstations had a network card that wouldn't
play nice with the 2.4 kernel provided.
Which drivers are missing? eth0: Tigon3 [partno(BCM95751) rev 4001 PHY(5750)]
Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Not the FAI one
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 236M, including nfsroot, 17273 files, again including nfsroot
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? Just a few custom files. 13 files in total.
What is the business of your company/organisation? n/a
Additional comments:
FAI is mainly used in our test/development network, where we often
have to re-install servers for a variety of tasks. I keep all the
servers FAI'ed up, and modify the DHCP server to give the machine a
boot file when I want to reinstall it. I've modified fai-monitor to
look for "installation complete" events and reconfigure the DHCP
server before the machine reboots.
I'm using FAI mainly as a super-powered reset button. Once I have the
system up and running and SSH-able, I use my own scripts to customise
the machine. The idea is to create an environment where I can build
whatever server the situation requires, whenever I want.
One of the things I would be very interested in is to port the FAI
installation resources to one of our AIX machines. That way, I can
install both AIX machines and Debian boxen from the same AIX
server.
From: Trinity Centre for High Performance Computing, info %ad% tchpc.tcd.ie
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:10:55 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 356 opterons, 80 xeons
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6 on the opterons,
fai-kernels 1.9.1sarge2 on the xeons
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster compute nodes
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: yes
type of network card: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: we used this to boot the nodes
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes for the Xeon cluster of IBM x335.
Which drivers are missing?
for the Opteron cluster of IBM e326's, the missing drivers and "parts" were
- the SATA controller driver for
SiI 3512 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01)
- 32bit compatibility layers for running 32bit, grub failed to
install initially because of this.
And obviously a year ago the OpenIB stack wasnt ready for use and wasn't
available in the debianised kernels in sarge. (this is needed for our
Infiniband HCA's to function)
How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 4.1M, 2777
How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 559
What is the business of your company/organisation? mainly an academic research/support unit
Trinity Centre for High Performance Computing, The University of Dublin, Trinity College Dublin.
Additional comments:
The IITAC cluster went into the top500 list in Nov. 2005 at 226th in the list.
More information and some pictures on the two clusters IITAC and moloch.
I'm answering this questionaire based on what we had available to us in
terms of software ~14-16 months ago.
We've used FAI to primarily bootstrap compute nodes, but we're slowly adding
to our FAI install so that we can bring up full nodes quickly if a node ever
has a hdd failure.
From: Adrian von Bidder, avbidder [äd] fortytwo.ch
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:06:37 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 80 Which version of fai are you using? 2.10 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build 2.6.15 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, plus one NX terminalserver (which is basically the desktop plus a few packages.) How do you boot your hosts? For Install: net, PXE boot. Some hosts are on WLAN which won't boot, so these are put to cable in a different room for installation. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No, IIRC the main issue was SATA. Not sure, has been some time. Do you manage your configuration space under version control? Subversion, yes. How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 5M, 154 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 196 What is the business of your company/organisation? IT consulting company, OPIT Solutions AG
Additional comments: Setup late during sarge lifetime, but too early for etch (particularly: fai was not ready yet) - so we install from a sarge nfsroot, but use "everything" (= KDE, oo.org, X, cups, udev, ...) from etch. Yay! for Debian's package management / dependency handling. This installation was done for a customer. It's Stiftung Bühl, Wädenswil They are a children's home for children and young adults with learning disabilities.
From: Carl Caum, carl ä_d cs.mtsu.edu
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:05:21 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 25 Which version of fai are you using? 2.10.1 (ubuntu) Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.15.6 from fai-kernels 1.10.3 (ubuntu) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops, cluster nodes, various servers How do you boot your hosts? DHCP, PXE, TFTP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes Which drivers are missing? none Do you manage your configuration space under version control? no, but I probably should start How big is your config space (Mbytes, # of files)? 382 MB, 664 files How many files do you have in ../fai/files? 463 What is the business of your company/organisation? Middle Tennessee State University, Computer Science Department
Additional comments: To deploy and auto update Ubuntu and Debian systems through our department. Although FAI has saved us time and time again, udev continuously presents problems. I ended up having to give a hack of a workaround like this: #### .../fai/hooks/configure.DEFAULT #### if [ -x $target/etc/init.d/udev ]; then chroot $target /etc/init.d/udev stop chroot $target /usr/bin/dpkg --configure --pending chroot $target /etc/init.d/udev start fi Recentently we ran into a problem with hal and udev. I had to create special udev rules because we didn't want to add all of our users to the cdrom, plugdev, etc groups in LDAP. So I made udev create all the devices with the users group. Hal ended up having to be added to the users group to work properly. Also, we ran into a situation where we have a networking lab with a master node that has a single connection to the outside world and all other machines were on a private network connected to the master node. So I ended up creating a FAI installation that installs an FAI server that all other networking lab machines can install off of. That was fun :) That's also why my .../fai/files is so large.
From: Russel Hill; russh347 xadx gmail.com
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 09:23:16 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? a few hundred, unless you count each installation on our test station (several hundred by itself) Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.3 plus fai-bootcd 0.3.4 We are now in the process of updating to the latest fai (in debian testing) Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom built 2.4, derived from from fai-kernels 1.8 (soon to be the standard 2.6 FAI kernel) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Rack mount servers, in pairs. I'd also like to use FAI on our development boxes. How do you boot your hosts? Using fai-bootcd, soon to be fai-cd. Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? The 2.4 kernel didn't meet the requirements for fai-bootcd so we recompiled to include those. The 2.6 kernel seems to have everything we need. What is the business of your company/organisation? Key Technology. We manufacture and sell food processing equipment (mostly sorters and conveyors).
Additional comments: We use FAI to install and update software on production machines both on our production floor and in the field. FAI makes the software installation fast and easy for our production and field service personnel. It also makes handling service calls easy because we KNOW what's installed. Our build servers automatically detect when source files have changed. They build, test, and package the various software components. One build server is dedicated to detecting new packages and automatically building an fai-bootcd ISO. Picture of our machines. The pair of linux boxes on which we use FAI are just above the UPS. The lower one runs our UI while the upper one does real-time processing. The remainder of the 1U rack mount boxes house custom boards with embedded processors for real-time image processing. The embedded processors also run uClinux.
From: Rudy Gevaert; Rudy.Gevaert _ta_ UGent.be
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:55:54 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? up to today 43 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4, but now migrating to 2.10.1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom built 2.4 and 2.6 kernels Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? xen virtual and host servers, mail servers, imap servers, general purpose servers, file servers, vpn servers, ... How do you boot your hosts? dhcp + pxe Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no Which drivers are missing? mpt* drivers, megaraid drivers, ipmi What is the business of your company/organisation? University of Ghent
Additional comments: Hardware are almost all dell poweredges (1750,1800,1850, 1855), we also have a dell blade system. I'm trying to install a Sun X4100 with FAI right now. This is 64 bit.
From: Peter Ackermann; packermann=et=thomas-krenn.com
Date: Mon, 08 May 2006 11:13:33 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 500 Servers per month
Which version of fai are you using? 2.9.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6.16
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Servers and some desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: X
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing? Depends on the Server, mostly block device drivers for
RAID-Controllers (ARECA, some Intel, LSI), networkcards (Marvel Yukon 2 e.x.)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Server Distribution, www.thomas-krenn.com
Additional comments:
We use FAI to install all of our servers for quality checking. As we
use a costum kernel that supports all of our hardware, we can see
imediatly, if there is a hardwarefault.
From: Jan Jansen, jan.jansen =a=t uni-dortmund.de
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:40:52 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 8
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom build kernel 2.6.8
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Mail/DNS/Ldap Server, DB+Terminal Server, Network Clients with different cfgs
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: often
via network card: more often
type of network card: intel e100/e1000
using FAI-CD: not yet
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing? No missing, but wrong choose of ethernet
driver, Raid Drvs
What is the business of your company/organisation? Producer of industrial embedded hardware (cpci), EKF Elektronik &- Messtechnik GmbH
From: Sebastian Broekhoven s.broekhoven _A_d networking4all.com
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:00:43 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? At this moment about 15 hosts. But there will be more.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel-image-2.6-686
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? All kind of hosting-servers. Database, DNS, Email, Web.
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: None
via network card: None
type of network card: None
using FAI-CD: Some servers.
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: All our hosts boots this way
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? None at this moment.
What is the business of your company/organisation? webhosting company in the Netherlands, Networking4all bv
Additional comments:
All our old Redhad and Fedora installations will be migrated to Debian
Sarge with FAI. We are using FAI to install and update our servers
remotely. FAI provides us a base installation.
From: Sebastian Schmitzdorff
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:26:57 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 200+ Which version of fai are you using? 2.10 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Hosting Server and Root Server How do you boot your hosts? PXE, DHCP What is the business of your company/organisation? easynet GmbH is a hosting company that provides customized datacentre/hosting/network solutions for business and enterprise customers.
From: IT Support Mathematical Institute, support =ad_ math.uni-bonn.de
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:34:29 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~80-90
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 (patched)
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.8-2-k7/AMD64
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: 3c905C-TX/TX-M, Yukon Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T, ...
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE/DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? Only vfat that makes trouble with USB
sticks if you're not root. We are preloading it now via /etc/modules
What is the business of your company/organisation? Mathematical Institute of the University of Bonn
Additional comments:
We're using FAI to maintain the large amount of Debian workstations
here. We have a large number of different hardware configurations. FAI
does the job very well to handle these in a easy way. Before we used FAI
we had to do the boring installation via Debian installer each time we
installed a workstation. Transfer of common configurations was made via
cfengine and a small script. (Cfengine in woody and the backport was
horrible, the cfengine daemon often died and took 100% of the CPU until
we finally killed him)
The installation of Sarge via FAI was remarkably fast. Compared to the
several weeks for the switch from SuSE to Debian Woody (by hand), we
only needed several days to update the workstations to sarge (it took
several days because of organizational problems)
From: Marco Jankowski, Marco.Jankowski aatt bfr.bund.de
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 08:58:38 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~30
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.8 and custom build kernel 2.4
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Web-Server, Application-Server, Desktops, Notebooks
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: Actually from floppy with static ip
type of network card: pcnet32 e1000 tg3
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? megaide(LSI)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Federal Institute for Risk Assessment
(BfR) is the scientific body of the Federal Republic of Germany that
prepares expert reports and opinions on questions of food safety and
consumer health protection on the basis of internationally recognised
scientific assessment criteria.
From: Guy Coates, gmpc =a_t sanger.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 09:41:19 +0100 (BST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? More than 540 in several clusters and for different servers Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? We use a custom 2.6 kernel. Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? compute farm, web servers and other miscellaneous servers How do you boot your hosts? Via the network card (broadcom gigabit / tg3 cards) Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? Some SAS drivers are missing from the stock sarge kernel. What is the business of your company/organisation? The Sanger Institute is a genome research institute primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. Our purpose is to further the knowledge of genomes, particularly through large scale sequencing and analysis. Read this article.
Additional comments: Main compute cluster -------------------- 168 IBM HS20 Blades (2x2.8 Ghz PIV, 32 bit OS) (picture) 280 IBM HS20 Blades (2x3.2 Ghz EMT64, 64bit OS) Trace searchengine cluster -------------------------- 48 IBM LS20 Blades (2x2.4 Ghz Opteron, 64bit OS) Web servers ----------- 28 IBM HS20 blades (2x2.8 Ghz PIV, 32bit OS) Misc servers ------------- 20 HP DL585 / 385 servers (various 2 or 4 CPU dual core Opteron, 64bit OS) Our deployed software stack is 725MB. Installation time on an LS20 blade is 153 seconds. (Machines have scsi disks, and we have a local debian mirror) As well as using FAI to install the OS, we also use FAI to "pre-install" the machines. The "Pre-installation" stage flashes and configures the BIOS and configures hardware raid controllers. We run two fai servers, one for installing x86 machines, and one for installing AMD64 machines. (I suspect that we should be able to consolidate onto one FAI server, as /usr/local/share/fai is also identical on the AMD64 and x86 servers). 17 Mar 2004: We've used numerous automatic installers (IBM csm, RLX control tower, redhat kickstart), and FAI is the fastest and the most flexible.
From: Bertrand Rétif, contact aatt phosphore-si.com
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 09:57:12 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Around 15 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6 Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? File server, mail server, desktops How do you boot your hosts? via network card, PXE boot and DHCP What is the business of your company/organisation? I just create my company that provide computer services to small companies. I currently working alone. Phosphore SI - http://www.phosphore-si.com
Additional comments: I use FAI to automate the installation of servers and destops I installed under Linux. I keep the configuration of servers under subversion, then I am able to reinstall quickly a host thanks to FAI and subversion.
From: Juraj Holtak, juraj aadd proaut.org
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:20:01 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 50 to 70
Which version of fai are you using? started with 2.5.x and are using 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build 2.4 kernel
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? destops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card:
using FAI-CD: X
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE and DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation? IT Service Provider, SCHWAAR.COM, ProAut s.r.o.
From: Mamadou Sow, Mamadou.Sow aXt lipn.univ-paris13.fr
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:49:15 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5
Which version of fai are you using? 2.9.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.6.15 from fai-kernels 1.10.2
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: *
type of network card:
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: *
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? Computer Science lab of the Paris 13 University (L.I.P.N.)
Additional comments:
In first time I'm doing some test.
From: Chris Allen chrisa xatx matrixscience.com
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:54:11 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 14 blades in an IBM Bladecenter HS20 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6 FAI kernel Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Mascot server cluster nodes How do you boot your hosts? PXE using on-board Broadcom Gigabit NICs Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? The 2.6 kernel seems to work. What is the business of your company/organisation? Matrix Science - proteomics software.
Additional comments: A real time saver for deploying the same Debian image to all nodes in a cluster. Thanks guys!
From: Xavier Claessens, probtech +at+ ulb.ac.be
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:11:36 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~70 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 (ubuntu breezy package) and currently migrating to 2.9.1 (ubuntu dapper package) Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom 2.6.12 kernel because older kernels have a bug in pcnet32 module. Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops How do you boot your hosts? from floppy Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? hardware are reconized but pcnet32 module is buggy is older kernels than 2.6.12. Not sure SATA disk drives works good with default kernel. What is the business of your company/organisation? Département d'informatique de l'ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Additional comments: FAI is great and very powerful but is still buggy. I hope 2.9.1 will be more stable. Also it would be great to have configuration examples for Ubuntu and not only debian. Thanks for developing FAI !
From: Ryan Nowakowski, ryan =ad_ britestream.com
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:41:43 -0600
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20 or so.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel-image-2.6.8-fai_1_i386.deb from fai-kernels 1.9.1
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? manufacturing test machines
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
using FAI-CD: *
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing? none
What is the business of your company/organisation? Britestream Networks. We make SSL offload NICs.
Additional comments:
We needed a way to consistently install test machines for manufacturing.
I started with systemimager but the latest release didn't have a 2.6
kernel which was required because of our newer hardware. FAI was easy
to set up.
From: Andrew Ruthven, andrew.ruthven ==a=t catalyst.net.nz
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 14:56:32 +1300
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 30-40
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build 2.4.26
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? web server, mail server, generic server, customer premise equipment for wlan
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: yes
type of network card: via-rhine (Epia Mini-ITX) and whatever is on a SuperMicro P4SGR motherboard
using FAI-CD:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE and DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation? At a previous workplace I made extensive use of FAI.
Additional comments:
Initially we started using it for building the wireless CPE boxes to put
out at customers sites. However when I came to rebuild our mail server
cluster I decided to make use of my FAI build environment to make my
life easier. My use of it pretty much grew from there.
It might be of interest you that the initial wireless CPE boxes were
built by dd'ing a master HDD. Then the company that was doing them
started using kickstart (Redhat boxes). We then redesigned them and
started using FAI.
From: Marc SAUVEUR, marc at= 7ici.be
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 19:40:19 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? first 11 in 1 hour
(march 2005), now i have installed 117 servers HP DL380 and DL 360 with succes and 25 Dell machines
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4 last version for Woody
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? actually i'm using 2-4-24
but i m building a new kernel with support for dell 1650 and 2650
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Actually from floppy with static ip
via network card: next step bootp or dhcp
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: drivers for lsi controller are missing it's mpt module
What is the business of your company/organisation? Internet service Provider, Belgacom NV/SA (Belgium)
From: Werner Fischer, wfischer äd thomas-krenn.com
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 12:47:43 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? currently about 5, number is growing
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.6.8 from fai-kernels 1.9.1
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? web server
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
using FAI-CD: X
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? Server distribution, Thomas-Krenn.AG
Additional comments:
We use FAI-CD to install "pre-installed webservers", which our
customers can buy. We have included the installation of SWsoft's PLESK
control panel for webservers. You can find more details here.
FAI is a great piece of software - thank you everybody who developed it!
From: Julia Longtin, risc =äd= volumehost.com
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 10:16:01 -0600
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 35-40, unsure.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 with patches.
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.8
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
(eg.: desktops, cluster nodes, notebooks, web server, mail server,...)
all of the above. and then some.
The primary DNS server of this organization is an FAI install, along with mail, ftp, www, wineserv...
About half my workstations have been re-installed using my fai-cd.
My robots were installed using fai-cd.
Half my notebooks are fai-cd.
Which version of fai-kernels are you using as your install kernel?
(eg.: kernel 2.4 from fai-kernels 1.8)
(eg.: custom build kernel 2.6)
so far as i know, i'm using 'stock debian 2.6.8-2'
How do you boot your hosts? fai-cd exclusively. For reproducability of procedure.
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? So far, everything is supported.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Financial image processing
Additional comments:
FAI-CD is now my primary install method, and FAI alone used to be my
primary install method on my clusters.
We use FAI for the reproducability factor. By burning a FAI-CD of our
servers/software, we can at any time revert to a previous version, or
perform disaster recovery. No "system administration" is performed on
live servers.
I've already got my subversion account for backporting/merging my patches.
From: Petr Kubanek, petr=kubanek.net
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:52:10 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 4
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6.11
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: X
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing?
What is the business of your company/organisation? High Energy Astrophysics Department, Ondrejov Observatory, Czech Academy of Sciences
Additional comments:
If you speak czech language:
http://www.root.cz/clanky/fai-full-automatic-installer/
From: Sirk Johannsen, sirk.johannsen _a_t minick.net
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 15:43:19 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approx. 60 by now
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.3
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6.8
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: see below
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: BOOTP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware?
No. We had to customize our own kernel to support Broadcom Network cards (module tg3).
Which drivers are missing? tg3
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes (tomcat-cluster), web server, mail server, java-application server.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Minick
Additional comments:
We have 2 FAI Install Server (one in our Datacenter and one in our office).
Both are synchronized using rsync to be able to install any host in any location.
From: Mattias Wadenstein, maswan(a)hpc2n.umu.se
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:06:23 +0200 (MEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Between 415-420 hosts.
The clusters:
190 nodes dual opteron running amd64
120 nodes dual athlon MP running woody
100 nodes pentium4 running woody
Which version of fai are you using? An old woody version and a fresh version that we are setting up for
installing sarge or a current ubuntu.
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom 2.4 on the old machines and custom 2.6 on the new ones.
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: yes
type of network card: various, mostly e1000 and tg3 these days
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Mostly cluster nodes. We have 2-4 admin workstations
that are also FAI installed, and a few servers.
What is the business of your company/organisation? HPC2N - High Performance Computing Center North at Umeå University
Additional comments:
We use FAI for a convenient and customisable mass installation of clusters.
We have these pictures that go together with some text about the clusters:
Then lots of various pictures of our hardware:
From: S. Kaikkonen, skaikkon #at# netlab.hut.fi
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:23:33 +0300 (EEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Now we have only 10 nodes in the cluster, later many more
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.9.1
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes / computers for networking experiments
How do you boot your hosts?
via network card: yes (and sometimes from CD)
type of network card: 3c905
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE, DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? No problems
What is the business of your company/organisation?
Research/education, Helsinki University of Technology, Networking Lab
Additional comments:
We need a small cluster to make efficient computing possible. Also
various networking related measurements and software development would
be done using the same infrastructure. Utilizing the automatic
installation and other tools / technologies the objective is to create
a system that makes it possible for different researchers to easily
configure / load a needed environment and also network topology.
From: Roberto Giana
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 07:34:07 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.9.1
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? cluster nodes, single servers
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: Onboard (RTL8139c chipset)
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP & PXE
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? no
Which drivers are missing? None. But IDE disk detection didn't work.
I had do the corrections as mentioned in http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-fai@rrz.uni-koeln.de/msg02948.html
What is the business of your company/organisation? No company, just home usage.
Additional comments:
I'm running a bunch of small PCs, which I use for testing different
software. Sometimes as cluster, somtimes as single servers. Looking
for a simple way to set them back to a basic debian installation using
network boot I found FAI. I'm happy with it!
From: Kenny Duffus
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 10:09:29 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approx 55 machines
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.6 from package 1.9.1
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai?
desktops (staff and lab machines), servers
How do you boot your hosts? from floppy/cdrom image of floppy, using DHCP
Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? Department of Computer & Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde
Additional comments:
much better than golden images
From: Christopher Huhn, linuxgroup =a@ gsi.de
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:11:10 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Only ~ 10 - 15 yet. Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom 2.6.10 kernel. Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? test desktops, test cluster nodes, web server, NFS server Yet to come: mail server, HA clusters, other services (LDAP, Radius ...) Our production desktops and batch cluster nodes are running NFS rooted, creation of both the NFS root images and the local /var and /tmp shall be done with FAI in the future. Our notebooks are installed with SuSE, maybe some day done with FAI ... (I already had a short look into fai4rh) How do you boot your hosts? PXE, Intel e100 and e1000 and some Broadcom tg3, very old ones with etherboot-PXE-floppies Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing? I don't remember exactly, but I think XFS was missing and the AMD64 kernel lacked a 32bit compatability option. What is the business of your company/organisation? High energy physics research institute, Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung mbH, Darmstadt
Additional comments: We are currently becoming quite fond of FAI. In the long term our complete Debian installation (currently 500+ servers, desktops and cluster nodes) will be done with FAI. For our current Woody-to-Sarge-transition we are even evaluating if a reinstallation using FAI is more feasable then a normal upgrade from Woody to Sarge in some cases (simple services) It will surely become a central part of our infrastructure management framework. Do you have some nice pictures of your installation? Maybe we can shoot some impressive pictures after the installation of our 100+ new double Opteron Dual Core boxes in Q4.
From: Klaus Ita, klaus.ita =a=t ai.wu-wien.ac.at
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 16:54:04 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5*5 + 2 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom built kernel (2.6) Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? desktops for training classroom (studends), developer tools/machines, java, openoffice, gnome, ldap-clients (authentication), nfs. How do you boot your hosts? pxe -> dhcp What is the business of your company/organisation? university, Institute for Information Business
Additional comments: We are using FAI for setting up our students PC's. We also install win-images with fai that are prepared with sysprep. For customization we are using a lot of cfengine that is started by FAI. setup time for linux: ~7min
From: James Bromberger, james __@= rcpt.to
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 09:44:33 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 60-80 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.3 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.4.27-fai Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Web servers How do you boot your hosts? PXE & DHCP Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Probably Which drivers are missing? Possibly sensors (hardware monitoring)? What is the business of your company/organisation? Web publishing and advertising
Additional comments: Rapid deployment of web servers
From: Daniel Hamilton
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 22:07:15 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Cluster currently consists of only 8 nodes (excluding Sun server)
... but plans for more ... lots more ;0)
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.2
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
Custom build 2.4.18 kernel for Sun UltraSparc Server.
Custom build 2.4.18 kernel for i686 Dual Athlon FAI Server.
Custom build 2.4.18 kernel for i686 Dual Athlon cluster nodes.
... I like custom.
Which types of hosts are you installing with fai? Cluster nodes.
How do you boot your hosts?
Via network card: Yes
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: Yes
Type of network card (i686 FAI server & nodes) : Intel EEPro100 (onboard)
Type of network card (Sun DHCP,DNS,NTP,NFS... etc server) : Sun
Happymeal and 3Com 3C905c "boomerang" (PCI Cards)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Academic
Additional comments:
The current installation is intended as a proof of concept for the CFD
work being done on the cluster.
To install cluster used for CFD work. FAI's great! Cheers! :0)
From: Kalle Happonen, kalle.happonen ä|t hip.fi
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 10:30:12 +0300
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Around 10 cluster nodes Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.4 from fai-kernels 1.9.1 How do you boot your hosts? from floppy Does the default install kernel recognize all your hardware? Yup What is the business of your company/organisation? Research, Helsinki Institute of Physics, Technology Programme
Additional comments: We use FAI to install compute nodes on a small grid cluster, and simply reinstall compute nodes in case of problems. Also FAI is used to reinstall a sandbox server which users may test & play around with. If we want to keep something new even after the reinstall, the packages and configuration files are added simply to the FAI class.
From: Richard Wonka, richard.wonka a|t altanapharma.de
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 14:45:42 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20+
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6
How do you boot your host?
via network card or cd using BOOTP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? nope
Which drivers are missing: mptscsih,aacraid
What is the business of your company/organisation? Pharmaceutical research, ALTANA Pharma AG
Additional comments:
I had initial problems that have been solved in cooperation with the
author(s) and a great community. Most of the trouble came from having
to install very different hosts, x86 as well as amd64, with very
different hardware-setup and uses. Not your usual setup, I guess.
Also not being able to have one's own DHCP-server is a pain. We're now
installing a small cluster as well as different workstations and some
servers. All going well so far. :-)
From: Steffen Grunewald, aei.mpg.de
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 15:45:00 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? more than 200
* a small Alpha cluster:
- 1 Alpha XP900 head node
- 10 Alpha XP1000 slave nodes
* Merlin (http://pandora.aei/mpg.de/merlin/):
- 4 Dual Athlon head nodes
- 180 Dual Athlon slave nodes (picture)
* a handful of other servers
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8.3
* started with 2.6.x in July 2004
* now running 2.8.3 (with the 2.8.4 sources fix patched in)
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.9
How do you boot your host? PXE (EtherExpressPro/100, E1000 on board)
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: 3ware support, in particular 9000 series
What is the business of your company/organisation? Research, Max Planck Institute
for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), The MERLIN Gravitational Waves Cluster
Additional comments:
We used FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) to make the move to Debian
less painful - and it proved to be a great setup tool!
From: Manuel Kiessling, manuel+ät+kiessling.net
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 13:41:29 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 12
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? using custom build kernel 2.4
via network card: all
type of network card: mostly Intel e100/e1000, some SiS900
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: using PXE and DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation? WWW search engines, online auctions, SMS services
Additional comments:
I've used FAI to set up the server cluster (web/sql) for our new reverse auction platform.
FAI is a beast at first, but once I could master it, I loved it! Definitifely worth the hassle.
From: Christopher Redmon, credmon|at|ece.utk.edu
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:55:08 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Approximately 40, soon to be approximately 70 total.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4, FAI for Solaris
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom 2.6.10, stock 2.4.27
How do you boot your host?
via CD-ROM: X
via network card: X
type of network card: SUNWeri, SUNWhme, SUNWskge
ARP/RARP, BOOTP: X
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education/Research,
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Additional comments:
FAI is used for reinstalling labs and servers. The original disk partitioning
routine has been modified to allow for machines to utilize software RAID.
Also, FAI for Solaris has allowing us to have code reuse, and to have a
similar installation platform for Solaris and Linux.
From: Justin Beckley jbeckley=at_ece.utk.edu
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:59:19 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 40ish Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom 2.6.10 How do you boot your host? CD actually Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No, (maybe yes) Which drivers are missing: We had a PERC card it wouldn't recognize. We have already got our custom 2.6.10 installed before we realized that our PERC card was bad. What is the business of your company/organisation? College Education
Additional comments: The default kernel is supposed to have PERC modules installed. Our card was bad, but didn't know it since the box was 7 days old.
From: Michael Gellman, m.gellman =ät_ imperial.ac.uk
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 14:41:14 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~70
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.6
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? using custom-built kernel 2.4.27
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: X
via network card: X
type of network card: Intel EEPRO 10/100
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: None
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education/Research
Additional comments:
Managing a networking testbed for experimental routing protocols. Our
project site is here
From: Daniel J. Priem, danielpriem _ät- flexserv.de
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 16:46:19 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 12
Which version of fai are you using? 2.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.4.30
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: 5
via network card:7
type of network card: PXE/BOOTP
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: none
What is the business of your company/organisation? administration of remote located server, Flexserv
Additional comments:
ship preinstalled servers to customers including a recoverydisc
From: Guejo, glatapoui _at_ gmail.com
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 02:10:10 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 29
Which version of fai are you using? First 2.7 then 2.8 (by dpkg)
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? none, I use a customly build 2.6.11.5 version
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: no
via network card: no
type of network card: no
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE with DHCP.
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? no, a GigaByte Ethernet card can't be found.
Which drivers are missing: sk98lin_v8.15
What is the business of your company/organisation? IMFS (Institut de Mecanique des Fluides et des Solides)
It is a public institute about solid & fluid mechanism (as you probably guessed :)
Additional comments:
Thank you. ;)
From: Henning Sprang, henning_sprang ät gmx.de
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 16:26:58 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.6 and 2.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.6.8 from fai-kernels
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: yes
via network card: yes
type of network card: realtek 8139 and others
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE and DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? seems so.
What is the business of your company/organisation? private hacking for fun :)
From: Ognyan Kulev, ogi _at= fmi.uni-sofia.bg
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 15:40:22 +0300
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20 Which version of fai are you using? 2.8 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.4 from fai-kernels 1.9 How do you boot your host? from floppy, with manually changed fixed IPs Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes What is the business of your company/organisation? Education, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Sofia, Bulgaria
Additional comments: The installed hosts are in labs.
From: anonymous, unibas.ch
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 10:53:08 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~5
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.8.2
How do you boot your host?
via network card: X
type of network card: Intel: i810 e100, 3Com 3c59x
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE, DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? Academic/Education (Library), University Library Basel, Switzerland
Additional comments:
We are evaluating fai for setting up all new Debian Systems, mainly
terminal servers (Nomachine NX) and some standalone systems (notebooks).
As an alternative I will test also the comercial cloning product Rembo
(http://www.rembo.com/products_toolkit.htm), that is already licensed in
our organisation.
From: Michael Tautschnig, michael.tautschnig _at zt-consulting.com
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:54:23 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~50
Which version of fai are you using? I' using FAI since 2.4, currently 2.8
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.4
How do you boot your host?
via network card: yes
type of network card: PXE, DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: I didn't try... :-(
What is the business of your company/organisation? University, Technische Universität München,
Lehrstuhl für theoretische Informatik und künstliche Intelligenz
Additional comments:
We are using FAI and the new softupdate-feature for the complete
management of our system - and it works great!
From: Stefan Berder, sbe _at= oleane.net
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 19:39:15 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~300
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Used to use fai-kernels 1.6 and now a custom 2.4.29 kernel
How do you boot your host?
via network card: yes
type of network card: eepro100, tg3 or bcm5700
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE + DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: tg3 and bcm5700 but that's quite usual ::)
What is the business of your company/organisation? ISP, TRANSPAC (FranceTelecom)
Additional comments:
FAI is used to install fresh servers for our service platform, it's
also used to reinstall servers that are already in the datacenter
without moving to this place (25km for work). I just installed 2 NICs
in the FAI server, one public interface and one private with all my
gateways as aliases, the private interface is in a special VLAN and
I'm doing netfilter NAT between the private and the public interface
to get access to the "outside". To reinstall a server I just need to
change it's VLAN and reinstall it. I got to do that cause I use 2
repositories, none of them is on the FAI machine.
From: Mathew A. Chrystal, matt =at chrystal-2.science.nd.edu
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:12:25 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approximately 70 machines have been installed
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.3
at the present time i am using 2.6.3. i had upgraded to 2.6.6 but
was having some problems with the install being unable to resolve
names so i went back to 2.6.3 and it worked fine.
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? none, using a custom kernel 2.4.26
How do you boot your host? Two types of installation were done:
1) 16 node beowulf cluster amd athlon 2600 which used dhcp on the
headnode and pxe to install the clients. card was 3c996b-t (gigabit).
2) various desktop machines boot with cdrom and dhcp.
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: some of the sata drivers were missing and i think they are included now.
What is the business of your company/organisation? university of notre dame
Additional comments:
mass installations of user computers and beowulf style clusters.
I have written a paper for secure installations using debian and fai for a recent sans (GSEC) certification.
From: Andreas Schockenhoff
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 21:48:53 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5 in production, a gateway with packetfilter, a proxy for mail, http ...., a internal server with imap, dns, hylafax ....., our main server with a database LTSP and samba. Which version of fai are you using? 2.7 and newer :-) Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.8.1 (I will allways try to update to the newest version) How do you boot your host? from floppy: Only if it necessary via network card: PXE type of network card: tulip, e100, e1000 BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? mostly Which drivers are missing: No. What is the business of your company/organisation? EKF Elektronik, Develop hardware for embedded computer
Additional comments: FAI helps us to set up debian systems. We use LTSP, so we need not so much clients. But I plan to use more Linux workstations. We install our servers with fai. We often have new hardware that we must test or debug, so we like quick installation of operating systems.
From: Ingo Wichmann, linuxhotel.de
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 11:21:43 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20 Which version of fai are you using? woddy 2.5.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.4 kernel How do you boot your host? PXE What is the business of your company/organisation? Linux training, Linuxhotel
From: Robin Schröder, tp4.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 15:41:58 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 8 hosts (AMD Opteron Cluster, amd64), 19 hosts (Computer Information Pool, x86)
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.6 (AMD Opteron Cluster) on x86 server,
2.6.5 (Computer Information Pool) on another x86 server
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? amd64 Kernel and nfsroot from FAI web page,
kernel 2.4 from fai-kernels 1.8.1 (Computer Information Pool, x86)
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Computer Information Pool, x86
via network card: AMD Opteron Cluster, amd64
type of network card: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 10)
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE, DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? research and apprenticeship,
Chair for Theoretical Physics IV
From: Federico Sevilla III, jijo =at free.net.ph
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 19:38:41 +0800
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 40 and growing
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom-built 2.4 Linux kernel with support for the XFS filesystem
How do you boot your host? From floppy. Migrating to PXE boot.
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing? We also need to work around the default LILO configuration of FAI
which writes the boot sector to the boot partition instead of to the MBR, which destroys XFS.
What is the business of your company/organisation?
Q Software Research Corp. is a consultancy firm that specializes in free and open source software solutions,
including customized research and development work for various clients.
Shopwise - Rustan Supercenters, Inc. is one of the leading hypermarts in the Philippines and is in the
process of migrating their branches to a Linux-based Point of Sale solution developed in-house.
Additional comments:
QSR developed a fully automatic installation system to support the
deployment of the Linux-based Point of Sale system of Shopwise. At
present (Q1 2005), Shopwise in Cubao (Quezon City, Philippines) with
about 40 active Point of Sale terminals has been migrated to Linux
using FAI. We are also in the process of upgrading the facilities in
the Alabang (Muntinlupa, Philippines) branch, which will also include
a Linux deployment using FAI.
From: Ben Vanhaeren
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 10:47:10 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 50
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.6
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.6 from 1.8.2
How do you boot your host?
via network card: using PXE
type of network card: intel e1000 and 3com 3c59x
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes, no problems here
What is the business of your company/organisation? Nuclear research facility
SCK-CEN (Belgian Nuclear Research Centre):
Additional comments:
We use fai to install new nodes on our Beowulf cluster. We also use it as a
quick failure revovery system / diagnostic system in case one of the nodes
goes down.
From: Ulrich Scholler
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 19:35:37 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~20
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4 running on Woody to install Woody
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom-built 2.4.20
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
empty, but bootable CD: * (floppy was just too slow)
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
It didn't at the time (FAI-Kernels were 2.4.18)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Department of Numerical Methods in Mechanical Engineering is a
department within mechanical engineering at TU Darmstadt. Our "business" is teaching and research.
From: Pedro Ferreira, pedro.m.ferreira -at- gmail.com
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:35:06 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 15
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.6
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? build my own fai-kernel from kernel 2.6.10
How do you boot your host?
floppy and PXE
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
PERC wasnt working width the default fai-kernel
missing raid in scsi low level drivers
What is the business of your company/organisation? PTC - DRI
Additional comments:
I used fai for installing the following :
PowerEdge 2850 width e1000, PERC and 4 CPUS
PowerEdge 750 , PII, PIII, PIV
We are using fai for quickly install some machines that will work as
toolboxes, and we are also using fai for building an pseudo-recovery
system.
Fai is a little difficult to understand at first but as we go along
its pretty easy.
From: Alexander Bugl, bugl -at dkrz.de
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 09:47:38 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? approx. 60 workstations
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1 (production) 2.6.6 (experimental)
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
custom build kernel 2.4.29 (production)
kernel 2.6 from fai-kernels 1.8.2 (experimental)
How do you boot your host? floppy + PXE, DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? maybe, did not test the defaults, as I use custom kernels
What is the business of your company/organisation? Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
To understand processes of the earth system, and to measure their
effects on climate changes.
Additional comments:
FAI is currently used for installing workstations used by scientists.
We plan to use the upcoming version of Debian "sarge" for all Linux
machines, and to use FAI to install workstations and servers.
From: Jeroen Akershoek, Jeroena -at- sara.nl
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:49:22 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 40+ Which version of fai are you using? Whichever is current in Debian/Testing (at the moment 2.6.5) Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build 2.6 kernel How do you boot your host? PXE or boot-CD if no PXE available What is the business of your company/organisation? High-end scientific visualization
Additional comments: We use it for fresh installs of new machines and clusters and periodical update of workstations configurations
From: Vincent Kraeutler, vincent :at igc.phys.chem.ethz.ch
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:12:08 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 60
45 dual athlon mp 2400+, msi k7d,
15 athlon xp 2400+, asus a7v8x
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.6
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel-image-2.6.8-fai_1_i386.deb
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card: yes
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: pxe
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes, as of kernel-image-2.6.8-fai_1_i386.deb.
before that, the broadcom NIC drivers were missing.
What is the business of your company/organisation? biomolecular simulation at the ETH Zurich
and use fai for the (mostly) automated installation of our computational cluster.
Additional comments:
personally, i have found the docs to be very extensive, but rather
confusing and at times misleading and/or out of date. the latter is
obviously largely due to the fact that fai seems to be evolving
rather quickly. still, it should be noted that i have resolved my
problems mostly by reading the mailing list and the source (very
readable, by the way), rather than the official documentation.
i would like to suggest that the following be added to the documentation:
-- the addition of a flow-chart or some other high-altitude flyover of the fai
boot process to the docs.
-- a wikification of the fai documentation process. fai seems to have
a rather supportive community. decentralizing the documentation process
might help in keeping its large body of documentation well-written,
accurate and up-to-date.
From: Jens Bergmann, jens.bergmann -at ewetel.de
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 18:46:33 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~65
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.6
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? custom build kernel 2.6.9 (added some modules/changed modules to built-in)
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: (vendor/module) Broadcom/TG3, Intel/E1000, Intel/E100, 3com/3c59x
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: megaraid (megaraid2 - new version of 2.6.9)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Internet Service Provider and Telco
Additional comments:
Central FAI Server serving a dedicated installation network at 3 locations in Germany.
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:51:40 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3 Opteron Systems (planned 40 Sun VX0z Machines), 5 Laptops, 5 Desktop Systems
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.5BETA for the Opteron systems, 2.6.6 for the others
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
For the Desktop using custom build kernel 2.6
For the opterons a costom 2.4.27-om (openmosix) Kernel, derived from the clusterknoppix CDROM
How do you boot your hosts?
Via PXE, DHCP:
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No.
Which drivers are missing:
The VX0z Boxes miss a driver for the LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c1030 PCI-X Fusion-MPT Dual Ultra320 SCSI
What is the business of your company/organisation? Teaching and Research in Computational Linguistics.
Additional comments:
Fai is faster than Jumpstart and autoyast! :)
I use FAI as installation tool for Linux and also Windows via partimage and sysprep.
From: Noah Meyerhans noahm - at- csail.mit.edu
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:25:50 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? There are approximately 200 hosts currently running. These range from servers to cluster nodes to workstations. Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom 2.4 build How do you boot your host? Most are booted via floppy or CD. Some netboot. Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing: We had some problems with missing drivers for newer hardware. SATA and some broadcom network hardware. What is the business of your company/organisation? Computer science research lab
Additional comments: Debian is the official Unix-like system at the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab, and all our machines are installed using FAI. It makes it easy for us to start all the machines off in the same configuration. We've found FAI to be flexible enough to handle the installation of numerous different types of system (including multiple Debian versions) with widely varying hardware and software configurations. It often takes some hacking to get things completely right, but the framework is there and is very usable. Additionally, we've found FAI's fcopy utility to be very useful for maintaining systems after installation (though we have hacked it slightly to be quiet in the case where it doesn't actually copy any file).
From: Heiko Zang, hosteurope.de
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:14:29 +0100 (MET)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~250
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? using kernel custom build kernel 2.4
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: X
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? NO
Which drivers are missing: The former kernel-image-2.4.24-fai
isn`t used in fai anymore, so no more important. aacraid in kernel-image-2.6.8-fai
What is the business of your company/organisation? Internet server hosting, Hosteurope GmbH, Köln
Additional comments:
We are using FAI to install dedicated Internet Servers. No complex class configuration
because FAI only has to differ between IDE, SATA and SCSI Harddisks.
From: David Hausheer, hausheer AT tik.ee.ethz.ch
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 12:04:06 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 8( 5 identical, 3 different)
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.4 from fai-kernels 1.8.1
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: using etherboot 5.3.7-3c90x, with PXE/DHCP (from 3 hosts)
via network card: using PXE/DHCP (from 5 hosts)
type of network card: 3c905C-TX/TX-M (6 hosts), 3c905B 100BaseTX (2 hosts)
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE/DHCP only
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: none
What is the business of your company/organisation? Research (Networking),
Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory (TIK), ETH Zurich
Additional comments:
We are using FAI to setup a small networking testbed which is used by 2
different projects. We need to be able to quickly reconfigure the
network configuration and install new software on all hosts. Also we can
now modify individual hosts for testing purposes and if anything goes
wrong simply reinstall that machine.
3 of our hosts are quite different from the rest, e.g., they are not
able to boot from the network card, 2 of them have SCSI harddisks, while
the others have IDE harddisks, 1 host has two harddisks etc.
Nevertheless we managed to setup a fai configuration with which we can
install all hosts the same way (but using different disk configurations,
special chboot hooks etc.). We are always booting over the network.
Fortunately, all hosts are able to run with the default fai-kernel. Only
the SCSI hosts need a different initrd file.
From: Ben Willcox ben.willcox at british-gymnastics.org
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:05:18 +0000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 7, soon to be 11 more
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel 2.4.27 from fai-kernels 1.8.1
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Yes
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes, except for
acpi which works with kernel 2.6.8 from fai-kernels 1.8.1 (but that
won't fit on my bootfloppy.)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Governing body for Gymnastics in the UK
Additional comments:
The initial build of 7 machines was for laptops used as part of our
in-house developed gymnastics scoring system used at major events. The
next 11 are also laptops, but will be used as normal Linux workstations
at remote sites, which are replacing old Windows machines.
From: Thomas Glanzmann sithglan @ stud.uni-erlangen.de
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 14:12:13 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? several hundreds. In production are 110 at the moment.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? we use our own generic install kernel 2.4
How do you boot your host?
via network card: yes
type of network card: eepro100 or 3c509b
PXE + GRUB + grub.conf via network + generic kernel
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Sure it does, but we don't use it anyway, because we have our own
generic kernel with some security patches and local enhancements like:
01.ipv6-2.4-fix
02.ea+acl+nfsacl+sec-2.4.25-0.8.71.diff
03.autofs-patch
04.2.4.28-pre3-syscall-FAUMACHINE
05.nfs-wait.fix
06.IGMP
What is the business of your company/organisation? Public Computer Science CIP Pool, Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen
Additional comments:
FAI bootstraps our machines and calls cfengine in the last script to do
the host specific configuration. We need absolut no intervention except
for telling the grub config to 'install FAI' to reinstall a machine.
From: Charles Fry cfry at ece.cmu.edu
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 15:40:26 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 78
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? kernel-image-2.4.27-fai from fai-kernels 1.8.1
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: Intel PRO/1000
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Carnegie Mellon University
Additional comments:
We are using FAI to setup a cluster used for distributed systems research.
From: Francois JEANMOUGIN, Francois.JEANMOUGIN @ 123multimedia.com
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:28:23 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 6 already installed, 60 planned, using sarge.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.6.8 form fai-kernels 1.8.1
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE is managed by Altiris Deployment Console. Last
step of the process is to launch a kernel with loadlin from a small windows
partition. I use a kernel extracted from the boot floppy generated by
make-fai-bootfloppy. For several machines, I will have to give make-fai-bootcd a try.
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Yes. (I have to check why I can't connect to the HP bl10e serial console, but
this sooo specific and does not work even with some certified systems).
What is the business of your company/organisation? Mobile services (SMS premimum, imode and such) 123 multimedia
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:09:46 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? One test host
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.3
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom build 2.6.8.1
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: X
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? XFS made always problems.
What is the business of your company/organisation? IT-Business
Additional comments:
It is to be used for setting up hosts with identical configurations for
longer time.
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:09:26 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 25, monthly increasing
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? self-made kernel
How do you boot your host?
via CDROM:
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation? Fully ranged ASP: hosting, housing and dedicated servers,
Service providing/IT Outsourcing: eg. pirobase®
From: anonymous
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 09:45:19 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 32
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Kernel 2.6.x from fai-kernels 1.8.1
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: x
via network card: xxx
type of network card:
e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.0.18
e100: Copyright(c) 1999-2004 Intel Corporation
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP, PXE
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
yes
What is the business of your company/organisation?Research
From: Jay Kusler kusler at nscl.msu.edu
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:30:18 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 70+
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? using 1.8.1 currently, with 2.6 kernel,
but have used other versions as well over the last year or so
How do you boot your host?
I boot from a custom boot-cd, but have used both floppy and
PXE boot in the past. CD fits better into our environment. The
CD is basically just a boot CD: no deb archive or anything else.
I generate the iso based on some script I found once (I think a Suse
thing, but I'm not sure)
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes, but I do have
issues with the Compaq SmartArray controller. I have found that if I
replace /usr/lib/fai/nfsroot/sbin/sfdisk with a copy from a woody
distribution, it all works fine (of course the disk_config needs to
understand about the /dev/ida mess as well... )
What is the business of your company/organisation? Nuclear physics research
National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory
Additional comments:
We use it to get a consistent, easily installed system. I have classes
for workstations, for file/samba servers, and for a number of variations
in between. FAI with cfengine2 gets me a known-good machine from bare
metal in about 12 minutes.
From: Uli Fietz, Fietz @ BLB-Karlsruhe.de
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:17:43 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 42
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.2 with kernel 2.4.18
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: x
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP:
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: 3c59x ?
What is the business of your company/organisation? regional research library
Additional comments:
We are installing the machines a clients only for web browsing with
firefox in a special kiosk mode.
From: Robert LeBlanc leblanc at byu.edu
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 18:19:38 -0600
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 64 node Dual Opteron Beowulf cluster
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom kernel
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: no
via network card: yes
type of network card: Broadcom Extreme
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE, DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? most
Which drivers are missing: lacks Broadcom network drivers
What is the business of your company/organisation? Biological study and research,
Brigham Young University
Additional comments:
We use FAI to set-up and reimage our cluster. Once I find the Debian setting to allow
more rsh connections at once, our cluster can be re-imaged in about 30 minutes.
Every setting I have tried does not affect the amount of connections allowed, but a
bash script just reboots one a minute.
From: Gerfried Fuchs, alfie at sil.at
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 12:04:01 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~50
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? home brewed
How do you boot your host?
type of network card: BROADCOM Corp.
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? no idea...
Which drivers are missing: tg3 is needed for our hosts, don't know
if it's in. And the special compaq modules, this is the reason
why we brew our own kernel
What is the business of your company/organisation? Silver:Server ISP: mainly access providing; but also quite some housing,
hosting, and other things
Additional comments:
as (re)install image for the dedicated servers we
offer our customers. two classes: maintained (no root access for
customers, admin ssh key login), unmaintained (no login for us)
From: Trishan R. de Lanerolle
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:00:29 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 35
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.2
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.7.1
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card: using EtherBoot CD + DHCP
type of network card: NForce2
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing: NForce2 network driver.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut USA
Institute of higher education.
Additional comments:
Used to configure and maintain Computer Science Department Linux Laboratories.
FAI significantly reduced installation time and is expected to reduce
upgrade times as well. Overall FAI is a great installer. FAI is
relatively easy to create a one of a kind installation of Linux, with
user defined configurations. We have added personalized settings such
as custom GDM logs as well as 3rd party applications, such as Matlab
and PPR Print Spooler.
However we did find the FAI documentation suffers from a number of
problems, including a failure to correctly explain how to use
Ether-boot instead of PXE and generally confusing terminology and
vague and imprecise wording. For example it took us a long time to
understand that the phrase "define a class" actually means to enable a
class. We almost gave up trying to use FAI due to the ambiguity of the
documentation. A thorough editing of the existing manual would go a
long way towards correcting this problem.
From: Holger Mense hmense at math.uni-paderborn.de
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 11:54:57 +0200 (MEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~120 Clients and Servers
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? None, we build our own kernel.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: yes (and CDROM if floppy is not available)
via network card: yes
type of network card: eepro100, eepro1000, tg3, 3c59x
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: yes
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: none
What is the business of your company/organisation? University of Paderborn, Mathematics Department
Additional comments:
FAI is used to install several types of clients and servers on
different hardware. With help from kudzu and severall bash-scripts all
necessary hardware informations are detected. FAI is only used for a
base installation (~60 packages) - our self developed software
management system then installs all remaining packages. It is also
later responsible for online-updates and configuration management. It
depends on FAIs class system.
From: Arcady Genkin agenkin at cdf.toronto.edu
Date: 28 Sep 2004 14:20:44 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 113 hosts (106 workstations and 7 compute servers) Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? Custom-built installation kernel to support newer hardware. How do you boot your host? We boot all our hosts via PXE+DHCP at install-time. Many hosts have 3COM NICs (3c59x), some have Intel EtherExpress 1000 (e1000). Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? When we first started using FAI, the e1000 driver was missing from the kernel. Also, some hardware had newer IDE controllers, so we built our own install kernel, which we are still using. Most probably, though, by now the default FAI install kernel will work for us, but there is no need to switch. What is the business of your company/organisation? Education. We, the CDF support undergraduate computing needs at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto
Additional comments: We have over a hundred individual Linux workstations, about fifty older Sun workstations turned into diskless X terminals, connected to three Linux compute servers, a bunch of Win2000 machines and a bunch of specialized servers. All of our user-accessible Linux machines have been switched from RedHat 7.3 to Debian 3.0 this Fall. This migration was a rather challenging task, but we are quite happy with Debian and FAI as the unattended installation method. Now reinstalling a machine is as simple as rebooting it, since the boot-up is controlled from our PXE server. We use FAI to do a minimal installation, installing only the necessary packages. All of the configuration is then done using Cfengine 2, which is also used later for keeping the configuration up-to-date. We like the fact that the concept of classes is shared by both FAI and Cfengine, and we use the same classes names for both systems. The biggest problem with FAI that we observed is that installing a number of machines in parallel (e.g. 14 machines) saturates the network and places a heavy load on the NFS server, hosting the mirror. Many thanks for providing FAI! Without it going to Debian would not have been an option for us.
From: Dale Einarson
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 12:05:19 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Now more then 20, 10 Lab computers, 10 in a cluster Which version of fai are you using? 2.6 I haven't looked and the updates for a while Which version of fai-kernels are you using? vmlinuz-2.4.24-fai can't say that there has been any problems with this... although see later How do you boot your host? The floppy built by an earlier fai version Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? I have an sl98lin based card that seems to hang on DHCP. Pervious version of this card (when on-board) seem to work fine. the cards I have now I still have yet to get working (not enough time to look at it) What is the business of your company/organisation? Centre d'Imagerie Cérébrale McConnell, McGill University
Additional comments: I have a background in cluster management and SMP presently I have 3 labs to support mostly students developing software ( 35 linux boxes) presently one cluster ( 10 DUAL CPU nodes ) I used to clone disks to copy config's... then moved to Kickstart... (redhat is/was a dead dog) heard about cfengine, never got to it... A fellow I worked with (Andrew Jenke) started up FAI... I am sold! FAI is a playground for out caffeine induced development! Thanks to you for creating something so cool that I can respond to :) Thank you all for your project and wisdom!
From: Harald Gröne ha at mst.hamtec.de
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:31:08 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 7
Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.2
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.7.1 + custom kernel
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: or CDROM, if PXE is not available
via network card: PXE or etherboot
type of network card: e100,e1000, sis900, 8139too, via-rhine,
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE, dhcpd3, bootp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: none
What is the business of your company/organisation? network security consultant
Additional comments:
I implement firewalls, mail servers, fax servers, samba servers and terminal
servers with FAI.
All systems run for different customers on different hardware. I'm still
struggling with the class concept to keep everything tidy. I manage my fai
tree with CVS and I try to migrate to branched CVS now.
Some of the systems are not static, I'd like to see some restore procedure in
FAI, to read back the actual state of passwd, shadow, group, named.conf, DNS
zones and databases (mysql) from some directory tree or mounted backup media.
I think, this is a quite common scenario, so it shoud get into the examples.
I had problems with SIS mainboards. Seem's, they had some undocumented
bios bugs/features. They got very slow after 20 minutes, though Power Saving
was completly disabled.
From: Cyril Bouthors, cyril at jexiste.org
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:28:44 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Already 10 hosts but 20 more hosts are planned. Which version of fai are you using? 2.6.2 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.7.1 with kernel 2.6.7 How do you boot your host? From network card (nvidia nforce2 ethernet), using PXE + DHCP. Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No. Which drivers are missing: forcedepth What is the business of your company/organisation? Jexiste, Internet web hosting.
From: Harald Staub, staub at switch.ch
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 23:32:21 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~20
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? self made kernels
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card: mostly Broadcom 570x
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE + DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation? SWITCH - The Swiss Education & Research Network
Our two most important activities:
- operating and enhancing the Swiss university network
- registering domain names ending in .ch and .li
Additional comments:
We are interested in the extensions currently known as pfai
to get a configuration management system. When looking at
the concepts of the tree of configuration files and the fcopy
command, this looks like a small step for fai with a big win.
From: Philipp Sacha fai (at) blue-cable.net
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 07:25:30 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~30
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE, DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing:
I do not use the default kernel, because i need support for the xfs
filesystem. Therefore i have built my own kernel, version 2.4.26, based
on the config from the kernel in the 1.6 package.
For setting up harddisks with LVM and XFS i use the setup_harddisks
script from Sam Vilain. I had to patch it a little bit, because there
were some failures in setting up ide drives with software raid and LVM.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Cable ISP
Additional comments:
We have slightly different hardware and we needed to setup different
machine types. The machine types differ from the software packages which
have to be installed. A machine type might be for example MySQL-,
News-Server or MTA.
To be able to install different machine types on different hardware i
have implemented dialogs which will be shown when a new installation
starts. In the first dialog one have to choose the hardware, afterwards
the machine type and finally the servers name and ip address.
P.S. I´d like to mention, that FAI is an excellent piece of software.
From: Nicolas Courtel courtel at cena.fr
Date: 24 Aug 2004 10:59:27 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 33
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4 currently upgrading to 2.6.1;
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6, currently upgrading to 1.7
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: only when PXE is not available on the (old) client
via network card: most of the time
type of network card: Intel, 3Com, Realtek, nForce, ...
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE + DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing:
-> Broadcom 4400 (for newer Dell Inspiron laptops)
-> nForce (for some nForce1 motherboards, nForce2 also has a 3Com Ethernet)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Centre d'Etudes de la Navigation Aérienne
Working on software for air traffic control, we try original solutions
that might be useful in future operational software
Additional comments:
Our FAI server is directly connected to 3 separate networks, and supports both
Woody and Sarge installations: 2 config directories, 2 NFS roots, and 2 groups
in dhcpd.conf, so that we can choose which system is installed on a client.
Only one FAI kernel, though, built locally, and that includes the 2 network
drivers we need for some hosts.
And thanks for this great software!
From: Paul Nijjar pnijjar at utm.utoronto.ca
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 12:46:44 -0400 (EDT)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Maybe 50 so far?
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Yes (Static IP)
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP or DHCP:
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? It recognises all network cards we use frequently.
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
Maybe 50 so far?
What is the business of your company/organisation?
We are a nonprofit organization. This project redistributes donated
computers to individuals and groups. We use FAI to install Linux on
some donated computers. The Working Centre in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
Additional comments:
Our purpose in using FAI is to customise the installer so it is easy
for our volunteers to use (many of them have never used Linux before).
I find the following components of FAI very useful:
- Being able to put the installer on a bootable CD
- Partitioning disks via config files
- Choosing software sets based on the disk sizes/RAM of our
computers
- Good support via the mailing list
Things I don't like:
- Scripts/hooks are not stable between releases, so I have to merge
changes to scripts after each release or risk breakage. My current
policy is to do all my customization via hooks, not scripts.
- The chroot environment causes problems (e.g. in using dpkg)
From: Oliver Eberlein
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 12:55:59 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 30
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? self made kernels
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: mostly
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: now testing PXE boot
What is the business of your company/organisation? local telephone company
and ISP, Network Engineering & Design (NED), www.netcologne.de
Additional comments:
FAI has eased the work enormously. We had only minor problems with
the hardware detection.
From: Gilbert Laycock g.laycock at mcs.le.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 14:08:04 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~150 so far
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4, testing 2.5.5beta for the
round of new installs due over the summer.
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3, (a 2.4.24 kernel), moving to custom
built kernel.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Yes (older PIII machines with non PXE nic)
via network card: Yes
type of network card: e100, realtek 8139, 3c905
BOOTP, PXE, DHCP: PXE and DHCP (but some issues with conflicts
with campus wide DHCP system)
Does the default kernel recognise all your hardware? No problems.
What is the business of your company/organisation? University, School of Maths &
Computer Science, University of Leicester
Additional comments:
We use fai to deploy linux (and a win2000 image) to all the machines
in out teaching labs, and also fro installing to new staff
machines. Having such a powerful standard install system has meant a
great saving of time, although the learning curve was steep.
From: Heiner Mudersbach, infos at fms-computer.com
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 20:14:17 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
In combination with Debian linux installations we built serveral HPC
clusters with AMD AthlonMP, Intel Pentium3, Pentium4 and Intel Xeon
(about 200-300 machines) and some AMD Opterons in 32bit mode so
far. Plus lots of pre-installed servers for customers as webserver,
database-server, router, application-server and so on.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4 and 2.5.5beta (with upcoming AMD64 support)
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: No.
via network card: Yes, via PXE.
type of network card: Various, mostly Gigabit Ethernet like Intel PRO/1000,
Broadcom 570x, Marvell
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCPv3
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
We normally use our own customized kernels. This is not FAI specific.
What is the business of your company/organisation?
Customized, linux-compatible high-quality servers and clusters, not only x86
but also 64bit platforms like Alpha (in the past) and AMD64 (today).
FMS Computer & Kommunikationssysteme fms-computer.com
Additional comments:
We are using a debian-based environment for testing purposes and
pre-installations with PXE network boot and FAI autoinstaller.
Right now it is only 32bit but we are working on the new 64bit environment
for AMD64/EM64T based on Debian-AMD64 Unstable.
Additionally we are looking for a port of FAI for SuSE and/or RedHat/Fedora,
but this is work in progress I guess :-).
From: anonymous
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 17:34:48 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 40, monthly increasing by 1 or two.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? self-made kernel
How do you boot your host?
via network card: X
type of network card: BROADCOM BCM570x
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation?
Full ranged ISP: mainly access providing, but also hosting and
dedicated servers (this is where FAI is used), both managed and
unmanaged.
From: anonymous
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:48:47 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3
different machines from different classes yet. A PIV 2,8 an PII333 and a
Pentium 166. The installation of the new pool (15-25 machines) was
schedules for September, but will probably happen to take place in the
beginning of 2005.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
I do only use selfcompiled Kernels. I know them best. :)
I do run 2.4.26 on the Clients and 2.4.22 on the server.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: yes, rom-o-matic boot floppy
via network card: yes
type of network card:e1000,eepro, viarhine,rtl3139
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
I always use my selfcompiled Kernel.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Education
Additional comments:
I'm using it as Software deploy System in my local network. It currently
installs two kinds of Systems: a) A Dualboot Debian-Linux and Win2000
client ready to log in (Install time on a PIV: ~15 Minutes, sysprep run
included) b) A Debian system. Install time: 15 Minutes on a P166, 5-7
Minutes on a PIV.
I install a bootmanager which gives the user 5 Boot options: a) linux
normal b) Linux reinstall c) windows reinstall d) reinstall all e)windows
The system will be used to serve roughly 30-50 clients within the next
half year. Hopefully other faculties will use the system, too.
All in all: Yiepie! I can stop wasting time with client installation and
Maintainance. That was the piece missing to become a real System Architect
on a Linux System. Unfortunately, now my jumpstart installation will
become useless...guess my solaris boxen will run Linux too, soon. ;)
From: Mike Horansky moho AT stanford.edu
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 17:03:36 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 14
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6 (customized to work with Dell 1750)
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: no
via network card: always
type of network card: eepro100, tg3
BOOTP or DHCP: dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? no
Which drivers are missing: megaraid2 (for kernel 2.4.24)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Educational, ITSS/Stanford University
Additional comments:
I found fai harder to learn than redhat's kickstart, but I found it to
be much more powerful. The documentation took some getting used to.
We are, to begin with, using FAI to build our webmail servers, mail
routers, and mysql server.
From: Bernd Broermann, bernd at broermann.com
Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 09:13:05 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 4
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6, special kernels for FAI
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Yes
via network card: rtl8138, sis900 , 3c5?? all PXE
type of network card:
DHCP:
What is the business of your company/organisation? IT-Service
for companys, Broermann Technologie-Beratung, Hamburg
Additional comments:
I was looking for a Backup/Recovery which I can control over remote
access. It should work for Linuxservers and Windows clients. Before
FAI I worked with Knoppix, which also can boot over network. But on
Knoppix you have to start sshd and set an password. With FAI I can
tell the clients in the network what they should do.
Setup of windows can cost a lot of time, even when there should run a
lot of special software. critical applications should have short
downtimes, when they crash. For Windows backup I used partimage 6.4.
From: Holger Levsen, hl at hbt.de
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 15:35:12 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~70 and increasing
Which version of fai are you using? As of 2004-05-24 we use 2.3.1
for production, but we will soon redesign our linux infrastructure
with fai 2.5.4 - both with Debian "woody".
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? none, we built our own
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: some
via network card: no, has not been necassary so far
type of network card: pcnet32 eepro100 e1000 3c90x 3c59x
BOOTP or DHCP: BOOTP
from cd: some more (bootfloppy burned on cd)
We boot them once for the first time from those media. After that, we boot
from harddisc only as we install a fai boot kernel on it, too.
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? no
Which drivers are missing: e1000, disc drivers are important, too: raid, scsi
What is the business of your company/organisation? HBT, Hamburger Berater Team GmbH,
founded in 1983, is a ISO9001-2000 certified consulting company. 28 coworkers
offer IT consulting and services, application development and business consulting.
For more information see http://www.hbt.de (german only at the moment) or
visit www.geofox.de (also in english)
Additional comments:
We are using FAI to install (almost) all of the Linux-Systems (servers
and clients) in a mixed infrastructure (Windows 2000 and Debian/GNU
Linux). We built an environment for developement and testing of our
products (E.g. www.geofox.de, a passenger timetable information
system written in Java), which need many systems with different configurations.
The characteristic of our infrastructure is the large number of
sometimes slightly different systems for which we need about 40
different configurations for about 70 installed systems in FAI. To
fit new requirements from these many different configurations we now
need to re-design and re-organize our fai setup.
At the moment we have eight (8!) FAI servers in our company: one for
production, one for testing and each member of the infrastructure team
has at least one "own" FAI server to develope and test FAI classes.
Using FAI we are able to maintain this heterogenous infrastructure by means
of about one admin. But of course the developement of new systems needs more manpower
as well as using new features of FAI like fai-bootcd or fai-configdir from cvs.
FAI is a very great tool, thanx for your nice job Thomas and all the other contributors !
From: alexander zangerl az+fai@bond.edu.au
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 15:00:55 +1000
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 26 lab machines, plus a couple of test boxes
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: yep
via network card: nope, too much hassle (for now)
type of network card: 3c905
BOOTP or DHCP: dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? no, see recent fai-kernels bugrep.
Which drivers are missing: ide-detect is not autoloaded.
What is the business of your company/organisation? educational, bond university, australia
Additional comments:
we're using fai to setup a lab of debian systems every trimester.
it works great, but the documentation could stand a bit of improvement
(especially in the area of the client configuration files).
From: Haakon Humberset
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:23:15 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 10 different hosts, about 20 installs total.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? I have fai-kernels 1.5.3
installed, though I've compiled my own fai-kernel, as to support new NICs.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: On some older hosts not able to boot from LAN
or with a non-functional PXE implementation
via network card: Preferably..
type of network card: Intel PRO/1000 nic's built into our
motherboards for our racks, but a wide
variety of others for other computers.
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation? Bioinformatics, Interagon AS
From: anonymous
Date: Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 17:49:34 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Still experimenting with four hosts. Could grow up to hundreds.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6
How do you boot your host?
via network card: PXE-boot
type of network card: Intel Pro 100
BOOTP or DHCP: dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing:
The Kernel didn't recognise the 3Ware-SATA-Raidcontroler.
I built my own kernel 2.4.25, based on your config-file, and added
3ware-driver support.
What is the business of your company/organisation? We do ServerHosting,
offering root-Server with Debian-Linux. Would be nice to offer SuSE or
RedHat Linux to our customers in future, automatically installed with FAI.
From: Daniel LEPRINCE calibre at edf.fr
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:08:47 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 200 at this day Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? We are using our own kernel based on GNU/Linux 2.4.21 or 2.4.25 How do you boot your host? from floppy: Yes on the LAN via network card: Yes inside Cluster Networks type of network card: Broadcom 57xx BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP What is the business of your company/organisation? Scientific Computing for a company of electricity, Electricité de France (EDF)
Additional comments: We are using FAI for the installation of our Linux Distro called "Calibre" on the Engineers Workstations. We also use it inside clusters of PCs, to make the deployment easier. We can easily control what is installed on each PC by using specific classes.
From: Frédéric BOITEUX fboiteux at calistel.com
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 11:19:51 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~25
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.2
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? home-built kernel...
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card: yes
type of network card: various, with drivers rtl8139too, eepro100, e1000, tg3, etc.
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? don't know, I use mine.
What is the business of your company/organisation? telecom / phone systems
Additional comments:
I've first used FAI to install Debian systems on boards without CD nor floppy
drives. When it worked (and it works well !), I used it also for almost every
install I can have to do many times... Uses of classes let me define some
profiles, share some scripts, and I appreciate also the fact you can patch
the code to suit our needs (until pacthes are integrated mainstream ;-)
From: Olivier olivier at celia dot u-bordeaux1 dot fr
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2004 15:39:25 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 4 growing to 25
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.6
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: yes
via network card: yes (pxe)
type of network card: e1000 tg3
BOOTP or DHCP: dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? University
Additional comments:
I use fai to the installation of all of our linux (sarge, woody)
workstations. (pc's, and workstations).
From: Jim Mintha j.t.mintha at uva.nl
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 00:09:27 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 15 so far. Mostly servers although I'm about to do 10 new desktop machines. Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1 About to upgrade to 2.5.4 when I saw the questionaire Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3 (1.6.0 shortly) How do you boot your host? Mostly via network card. (3com or Intel with PXE). A couple of strange machines (either weird network card, or in unaccessible subnet) Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Which drivers are missing: No problems so far. (kernel has all the drivers needed for install, after we add our own custom kernel package with the rest such as fibre card, etc.) What is the business of your company/organisation? Education (university)
Additional comments: We use FAI for the installation of all of our Linux servers. It allows us to very quickly install new servers and ensures that all of our servers remain consistent.
From: Yaroslav Halchenko, fai at onerussian.com
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:49:11 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 25 amd64 opteron nodes with 32bit Linux.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? none - used our own
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5702
type of network card: Gigabit
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
What is the business of your company/organisation? University/Research
Psych. Dept., Rutgers-Newark, ravana.rutgers.edu
Additional comments:
High learning curve but pleasant experience aftewards. The only problem
I've encountered was apt hanging process during installation of some
programs. May be it was fixed by now - I didn't run FAI afterwards but
looking forward to set it up to be used for any other new comming
machine. After installation the cluster was maintained using
cfengine2
Cluster web page
Pictures of the cluster
From: Aaron T Porter
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:28:26 -0800
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 215 in two clusters,
one 80 dual xeons the other 135 dual opterons
Which version of fai are you using? 2.3.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? homegrown
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card: PXE
type of network card: e1000 & tg3
BOOTP or DHCP: dhcp
What is the business of your company/organisation? Government/Scientific Research
From: Gabriel ILLOUZ, Gabriel.Illouz at limsi.fr
Date:Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:30:36 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? a dozen
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.4 (just changing, before the woody one 2.5.3)
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? do-it-myself, (some machine with specific hardware)
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Y
via network card: Y
type of network card: MANY
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? nope
Which drivers are missing:
(if I remember well, some mpt scsi, 3ware, some gigagbit eth)
What is the business of your company/organisation? research lab
Language, Information and Representation research group (LIR, LIMSI lab)
Additional comments:
nice and easy to modify package.
Using FAI to install automatically, new and old machine to have a
homogeneous distrib on hetrogeneous machine. One objective will be to
have a cluster of personnal machine during the night for corpus
processing (Natural Language Processing)
From: Jordan Hrycaj jordan at mjh.teddy-net.com
Date: 20 Feb 2004 10:27:59 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? There were about twenty
(or a bit more) different setups. The rest is just cloned.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.2
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? customized 2.4.20/2.4.24
(I also need e100), will probably change in future
How do you boot your host?
BOOTP or DHCP: fai installation mostly with pxe when available
What is the business of your company/organisation? domain development, consulting,
company name: Maxina GmbH & Co KG, www.maxina.de
Additional comments:
Fai is used to set up the gw128 appliances that run under debian.
We produce accounting systems for internet access.
From: Arno Wagner wagner at tik.ee.ethz.ch
Date:Tue, 17 Feb 2004 18:23:46 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 20, all identical.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.3
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
No special kernels. We have a stock www.kernel.org 2.4.23 for
installation and an OpenMosix 2.4.22 for operation.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Etherboot 5.3.5-mc1 (was patched for us)
type of network card: Netgear GA302T (Tigon 3 ac9100)
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP. Also for normal operation so we can
select the kernel to boot on each node from
the server.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Research (Networking, Network-Security)
Additional comments:
While a little difficult to initially understand, once you have
grasped the core idea of FAI, it is very easy to use. We have an
experimental cluster intended for frequent re-installation. Since FAI
can install all 20 machines in about 8 minutes, we now do a
reinstallation when we want to upgrade/modify the installation,
instead doing individual modifications on the computers. There are no
user accounts on the machines themselves, so this works well.
From: Andrew Janke rotor at bic mni mcgill.ca
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:28:14 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~50 and counting
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.2
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Initially and then from fai-boot
via network card: Soon (I hope, if the PROMS arrive)
type of network card: Linksys (tulip) + 3com
Also ASUS onboard 3c940's but I can't find
a reliable driver (3c2000).
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: tulip
What is the business of your company/organisation? Brain Imaging Centre
(www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca) and when I'm home, another Imaging Centre
(www.cmr.uq.edu.au)
Additional comments:
At the Dept. of Computer we used to use a Redhat kickstart install for
a variety of linux clients with a wide variety of hardware, those
times are now (thankfully) gone. I also use FAI back home (Australia)
to install a small cluster. In short FAI is one of the best tools I
have ever used. Difficult to learn initially but well worth it.
From: anonymous
Date: 03 Feb 2004 18:09:42 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Maybe a dozen or
so since I started this job.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? None, we roll our own kernel.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Never.
via network card: Yes.
type of network card: 3Com Tornado and
Intel EtherExpress Pro/100
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP, PXE, TFTP, in this order.
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Which drivers are missing: Dunno, see above.
What is the business of your company/organisation?
We provide computing facilities for a University institute.
It's called "Rechenzentrum des Mathematischen Instituts der
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München".
From: Venkata venkata at cs.uno.edu
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 13:08:02 -0600
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 72
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: yes
via network card: n/a
type of network card: 3com 3c59x
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: none that I know of.
What is the business of your company/organisation? higher education
Additional comments: At the Dept. of Computer
Science at the University of New Orleans, we have used fai to install
a 72-node Beowulf cluster. Each node is a 2Ghz Pentium 4 with 1GB of RAM and 20GB of
disk. We are also planning to use fai to install linux boxes in student labs.
fai is great -- can't wait until the version for the next release
of debian becomes available. Thanks Thomas.
From: Henning Glawe glaweh at physik.fu-berlin.de
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 10:36:40 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 139
Which version of fai are you using? PFAI, a fork of 2.3.1cvs plus a few
backports from HEAD, currently working on integrating PFAI into FAI
HEAD
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
none. we use a customized kernel (2.4.23 + nfsacl + libata )
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: most computers
via network card: 2*laptop + 1*EPIA
type of network card: e100, via-rhine
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
didn't try default fai kernel for 2 years...
What is the business of your company/organisation? physics department of university (FU Berlin)
Additional comments:
We are a team of 5 admins, so for better cooperation I patched FAI to
support CVS (merged); we need on-line updates, so once again FAI was
patched (half-merged with mainstream fai); currently I'm working on
debconf support (seems to be working, so expect a release soon).
From: John Bazik jsb at cs.brown.edu
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 09:34:13 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~300
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? we build our own
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: mostly 3com, some intel
BOOTP or DHCP: dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? nope
Which drivers are missing: broadcom ethernet (module-only source)
What is the business of your company/organisation? higher ed
Additional comments:
FAI is an essential part of our infrastructure, we couldn't do without
it. Thanks.
From: Guillaume Lederrey Gehel@LedCom.ch
Date: 11 Oct 2003 12:04:07 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 25
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Yes
via network card: No
type of network card: 3c905
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: NONE
What is the business of your company/organisation? Technical School
EIF - Ecole d'Ingénieurs de Fribourg (Technical School Fribourg) www.eif.ch
Additional comments:
FAI is used in our school to install one computer room of 25 clients.
Computers have removable disks, one with Windows 2000 one with Debian
GNU/Linux. It took about 2 weeks to deploy FAI.
Thanks for your great job !!
From: Ake.Sandgren@hpc2n.umu.se (Ake)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 11:54:11 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? +120
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5 + patches
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? None. Only our own kernels.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: X (on our smaller cluster and some older machines)
via network card: X
type of network card: 3com, intel and some others
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Not using default kernel
What is the business of your company/organisation? Educational, High Perfomance Computing
HPC2N, Umea University, http://www.hpc2n.umu.se
From: Michal Svamberg svamberg@civ.zcu.cz
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 15:30:12 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
160 workstations (30 stations use FAI only for install MS Windows image)
20 servers (plan is to next 30 servers install by FAI)
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? I use my own kernels.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: grub
via network card: perex (special bootrom SW) and grub
type of network card: 3c509, 3c905, ne2000
BOOTP or DHCP: booth
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
I have a problem with AACRAID (not in older standard kernels) and I need
a fiber channel driver qla2300 (the driver is outside standard kernels).
What is the business of your company/organisation? education
Laboratory for Computer Science
University of West Bohemia
Czech Republic
Additional comments:
Workstations are installed on demand (from bootmenu by user), logs are
sent by e-mail to administrators. We use BOOTP and DHCP, workstations
have bootroms and use Perex for netboot menu allowing users to select
boot options (operating system, reinstalation, help). We often use
FAI for dual system installation (linux, windows). The FAI choses the
appropriate Windows image, uses 'dd' to write the partition and
resizes it to fit the target partition.
At the university, we use FAI to install AFS, DNS, BOOTP, DHCP,
database, print and other servers.
From: Jan Nabbefeld jan at sigterm dot de
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 19:05:35 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3 but will be more
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: [X] 3,5"
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: none
What is the business of your company/organisation? research, study purpose, FHTW Berlin
We plan to install a pool of 20 debian boxes.
From: Ulrike Nitzsche U.Nitzsche@ifw-dresden.de
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 12:31:36 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? ~100
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: only the hosts with old network cards
via network card: yes
type of network card: eepro100, 3com with bootprom,
DS21140 (tulip) with floppy
BOOTP or DHCP: dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? scientific research, (solid state theory)
Additional comments:
FAI is used to install cluster nodes and to do reproducible
installations of servers. According the fai-kernel version I have to
complete that for cluster nodes I use a self compiled kernel-package
with enabled "big memory (4GB)" option and without initrd. A lot of
unused features are removed (Irda, video, sound, firewire,...) For the
other hosts a recompiled kernel-package without initrd is used.
From: anonymous
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 15:21:36 -0500
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 33 and counting
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3 is installed, but we had
to compile our own kernels for the Broadcom 9570 nic.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Only when the machine doesn't support PXE.
via network card: On machines that support PXE, yes. Mostly dell 1750's.
type of network card: Broadcom 9570
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP with static ip's.
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing: Megaraid 1.18j and Broadcom 9570
What is the business of your company/organisation? Electronic Payment Management
Additional comments:
FAI has made our transition from RedHat to Debian one of the most painless
efforts I have ever had the pleasure of completing.
Thanks for your effort.
From: Jacques Foury Jacques.Foury@math.u-bordeaux.fr
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 16:50:20 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 16, growing
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3 but we recently built our own 2.4.21 kernel
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:yes if old PC
via network card:yes
type of network card:intel e1000
BOOTP or DHCP:DHCP with fixed addresses
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No, then we built new one
Which drivers are missing: 3w-xxxx aic79xx
What is the business of your company/organisation? University
Additional comments:
It is a pity Woody does not give the last fai package...
and the fai-kernels should be up-to-date and generic as often as possible !
Indeed a great work !!! Thank you Thomas !
From: Ari Pollak ari@debian.org
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 09:13:34 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 12+
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 2.4.20
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: yes
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP, with static server IP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
What is the business of your company/organisation? College of computer & information science
From: Joerg Lehmann Joerg.Lehmann@Physik.Uni-Augsburg.DE
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 14:00:55 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? Around 80 at the moment
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? None, we use our own customized kernels
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Yes (old hosts)
via network card: Yes (new hosts)
type of network card: various types (mostly Intel e100)
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Does not apply since we use our self-built kernels
What is the business of your company/organisation? University,
Universität Augsburg, Institut für Physik
Additional comments:
We started using FAI some years ago for the installation and the administration
of Linux desktop systems. Subsequently, we started deploying Linux servers with
the help of FAI. Our most recent FAI project was a Linux cluster with one master
(IBM x345) and 16 compute nodes (IBM x335).
For the administration of the clients, we use a stripped down version
of the FAI install script, which works quite well.
From: Souchon Yann
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 11:42:05 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 5
Which version of fai are you using? 2.5
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: No
via network card: Yes
type of network card: Broadcom 9570 (DELL PowerEdge 1750)
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No
Which drivers are missing: Megaraid 1.18j, Broadcom 9570
What is the business of your company/organisation? Development + Hosting
Additional comments:
FAI is great and very useful. Many thanks Thomas for your work !!!
From: anonymous
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:42:27 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? about 30
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
via network card: yes
type of network card: RealTek onboard 8139C Chipset, PXE boot rom
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: none, at the moment ;-)
What is the business of your company/organisation? Network Security / Developement
Additional comments:
we're using FAI to install our IDS (based on SNORT, but very much
imporoved) on our IDS hardware boxes. In future, i'll try to create a
FAI boot cd to install the whole system, including our own packages,
so that we can ship the IDS also as a cd standalone version. this will
be very tricky because we want the ids to support a variety of
hardware... i'm not sure if i'll be able to successfully complete that
tast, but at least, i'll give it a try ;-)
From: Andrew Agno
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 07:58:01 -0700
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 40 + repeats.
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
via network card: yes
type of network card: 3Com 3c59x driver ;
Via-rhine built-in for Via Epia M10000, M9000, M800;
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware?
Yes, although the X detection misses the on-board via driver
-- should be vesa or trident.
What is the business of your company/organisation? AI Research in our group
You can also add some words, how you are using FAI in your company.
Additional comments:
FAI is used for the centibots project, http://www.ai.sri.com/centibots/
Love the product--it's fantastic as a rescue system, too.
From: Jacob Weismann Poulsen jwp@dmi.dk
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 12:08:50 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? around 85 at the moment
Which version of fai are you using? a patched version of 2.3.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? none of them
How do you boot your hosts?
from floppy: yes
from cdrom: yes
via network card:
type of network card:
BOOTP or DHCP: BOOTP (boot-menu as well as install-kernel
are downloaded via TFTP)
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? we use our own customized kernels
What is the business of your company/organisation? weather forecasts and research (http://www.dmi.dk)
From: Arnaud Lauriou lauriou@enst.fr
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:39:16 +0200 (CEST)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 30
Which version of fai are you using? 2.2.3
Which version of fai-kernels are you using? We don't use the FAI kernel,
we use our own kernel.
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: Yes
via network card: Yes (with PXE)
type of network card:
BOOTP or DHCP: DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No, so we decide to use our own kernel.
What is the business of your company/organisation? Educational (engineering school).
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, PARIS, FRANCE
From: Aurélien Gâteau
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 13:58:08 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? A dozen right now, we will install a lot more soon, when the product we developed is officially launched. Which version of fai are you using? 2.4.1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.3 How do you boot your host? We use a floppy which boot the system, get an IP from our local DHCP server, then mount the FAI nfsroot. The FAI server address and the target hostname are hardcoded into the server through kernel options. Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? No problem, works fine What is the business of your company/organisation? We develop dental aid software.
Additional comments: FAI is great, this is really the tool we were looking for. Keep up the good work!
From: Ludwig Schwardt schwardt@sun.ac.za
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 10:37:21 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? About 5 and counting. Which version of fai are you using?2.4.1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5.1 How do you boot your host? From floppy. I've modified make-fai-bootfloppy quite a bit, added initrd support to handle my nforce2 network card (I know you don't like this very much, but there was no other way, plus I really wanted those motherboards...). I still use DHCP to get network settings though. I've also added an optional manual override to the network settings during bootup, for computers whose DHCP settings are unavailable. For this I had to hack ash/busybox a bit. Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? NO Which drivers are missing: nvnet nForce2 network card. Unfortunately this is a proprietary NVidia driver with no way of using it besides via initrd. That's why I am also interested in fai-bootcd, which would make this problem go away. Upgrading to Debian and simultaneous hacking of FAI is a rather slow process at the moment, given that people are still using their computers... What is the business of your company/organisation? Engineering research.
Additional comments: Thanks for a very nice package! The Digital Signal Processing Lab here at the University of Stellenbosch has been a Linux environment for more than 7 years now. We've got about 30 machines running various distros, from Redhat 5 (!) to Debian sarge. They mostly serve as workstations and for running simulations. I've helped push the lab towards Debian for ease of maintenance, and FAI fits right in there. Especially after reading infrastructures.org, I became convinced that this is a good road to go down. The biggest obstacle is the fact that the lab hardware is very heterogeneous. Sitting in South Africa, we mind our budget very carefully, and always go for the best deals we can get. Unfortunately we therefore don't buy PXE network cards or 100 identical computers at a time. A lot of legacy systems remain, combined with very recent and less supported hardware. The FAI system has made it easier, though, and I am satisfied with the results so far. I've been hacking at fai since May this year... I might send you patches once I've figured out what I've done myself :-> Thanks again for a nice system!
From: Alex Pothaar a.pothaar@rc.rug.nl
Date: 23 Jul 2003 12:03:03 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 40+ workstations and servers Which version of fai are you using? 2.4.1 Which version of fai-kernels are you using? 1.5 How do you boot your host? Intel 100 networkcard using PXE2.0 Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. What is the business of your company/organisation? University Rekencentrum Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Additional comments: We have used FAI for installation of servers for some time now. Recently we had to design an enviroment for storing and processing of fMRI-scanner data (neuroimaging project for http://www.rug.nl/bcn). These systems had to be installed and supported by non-linux staff. The setup consists of servers, a SAN connection and about 40 workstations. Installationprocedures are reduced to editing some files (dhcp, classes) and pressing <F12> (PXE networkboot) for an unattended install. In less than 15 minutes a Debian GNU/Linux with software and vmware (for a proprietary OS) is installed, preserving local data. FAI is great stuff. Keep up the good work!
From: Daniel Myers dmyers@pomona.edu
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 20:04:55 -0400
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 30+
Additional comments: I work in the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution at the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole,MA). I just thought I'd let you know that I've used FAI with great success to set up the computing laboratory for the Workshop on Molecular Evolution at the Marine Biological Laboratory (http://newfish.mbl.edu). Using FAI, we were able to get 30+ workstations up and running (starting with an empty room) in the space of about a day--thanks much for some excellent software.
From: Philipp Grau PHGRAU ZEDAT dot FU-BERLIN.DE
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:21:39 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
We are currently planing the installations of about 40 Linux computer as x-terminals
and about 40 Servers via fai.
Which version of fai you are using? 2.4.1
How do you boot your host?
via network card: x
type of network card: 3com
Do you use bootp or dhcp? dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Which drivers are missing: none
From: Joshua Moore J.MOORE @ DKFZ-HEIDELBERG dot=DE
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 16:55:28 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 4 currently. The final system will be 40+ as soon as netboot is configured. How do you boot your host? Currently we boot from floppy, then the information is pulled over by bootptab. At DKFZ, however, we are part of a large network, so there is also a main bootptab running over yp-server and dhcp. There are problems due to this. We would like to use pure netboot as soon as possible. Do you use bootp or dhcp? bootp Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes. We've had to kernel problems.
Additional comments: My biggest problems, I think, have always been with ssh. Notice above what I had to do to get it running, and I >STILL< can't ssh in to a installing machine. Much of this ssh setup should be self-configuring during "fai-setup". In general, though I'm thoroughly happy with FAI, I would have to say that the version 1.3.1 should definitely NOT be in stable. The changes I had to make there were extreme. Even tracking down the posix problem in make-fai-nfsroot was a bit extreme. A typical user, simply shouldn't be expected to go through such lengths. Nevertheless, I would be very interested in your work for solaris. We also have +20 Solaris machines, which I could possible tie into the one cluster.
From: Francois CONTAT FRANCOIS dot=CONTAT ==FR.TISCALI.COM
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 12:02:45 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? pratically 1 for
the moment, 15 in the future
Which version of fai you are using? 2.4.1
How do you boot your host?
via network card:Y
type of network card:eepro100 (Intel ethernet express pro 100)
Do you use bootp or dhcp? None, fixed-address
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Additional comments:
Appears that there is a big problem in the make-fai-bootfloppy
script. The root data is supplied with the nfsroot value, and nfsroot
is left blank. Needed to change manually the script at the lilo and
grub section to add the good nfsroot and root value. I hope this will
be corrected.
Really thank you for this work.
From: Stephane FRITSCH STEPHANE dot FRITSCH AT @RTE-FRANCE.COM
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 12:03:13 +0100
How many hosts have you installed using fai?
2 installations servers (yes, FAI servers are installed with FAI :-)
we plan to use it to deploy debian linux onto users' desktops,
laptops and devlp servers
Which version of fai you are using? fai:2.4.1 fai-kernels:1.5.3
How do you boot your host?
from floppy: yes, with dhcp and static IP passed as a
parameter to the kernel from the boot menu
via network card: no, not currently but this may change if we decide it
type of network card: eepro100 mainly
Do you use bootp or dhcp? we use dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? no drivers are missing
right now but we haven't tried all our configurations yet.
Additional comments:
No, we use FAI to install classical server and desktop on our
LAN. We want all our machines to share the same settings and
the same package set (well, mostly the same settings).
And of course, we want to do a unattended install of debian/linux
over the network. In the future, we will probably also experiment
cdrom-based FAI installation to configure dedicated server
at customers' place.
From: Niklaus Giger ngiger@mus.ch
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 21:38:55 +0200
How many hosts have you installed using fai? 3
Which version of fai are you using? 2.4.1
Which version of fai-kernels are you using?
How do you boot your host?
from floppy:
via network card: yes
type of network card: built-in
BOOTP or DHCP: dhcp
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? yes
Which drivers are missing: eepro100
What is the business of your company/organisation? I am using this just for my
fun at our home with 2 IntelPCs and 2 Macs. Next week I will setup a neighbours one.
From: Florent DEMURE florent_demure@yahoo.fr
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:17:02 +0100 (CET)
How many hosts have you installed using fai? One, but the install is quite not finished at the moment Which version of fai you are using? 2.3.1 How do you boot your host? from floppy: Do you use bootp or dhcp? dhcp, becauses it forces you to reload manually each time you change something Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware? Yes
Additional comments: I'd like to thank you one more time, because thanks to your work, i was given an interesting and useful project (the Nautibus - computer science area - plans to use FAI in a close future), even if i spent hours on errors (Linux newbies are newbies :D)
From: Susan G. Kleinmann SGK@@KLEINMANN dot=COM
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 12:14:23 -0500
How many host have you installed using fai ? None
Which version of fai you are using ? 2.2.3
How do you boot your host ?
from floppy:
via network card: X
type of network card: 3C905C-TX-M
Do you use bootp or dhcp ? DHCP
Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware ? I used my own 2.4.X kernel.
Which drivers are missing: Mostly I was interested in having support
for the I845 chipset.
Additional comments:
I had the following questions about using fai, which eventually led me
to use a manual install rather than an fai install:
1. Do I have to have RARP and NIS working on my server to use fai?
Off-topic: Do RARP and NIS have to be working on my server in order
to execute a remote install, whether or not I am using fai to do it?
2. Why can't debdist be 'unstable'?
3. Isn't it true that _either_ FAI_DEBOOTSTRAP _or_ FAI_BASETGZ should
be defined, but not both? It's not clear whether all the configuration
parameters have to be set, and whether one should specifically not set
some parameters if others are set.
4. I don't have a lot of space left on /usr/local/share, so I would have
liked to change the default value for FAI_CONFIGDIR. But I needed to know
-- how big does this directory have to be?
-- what ownership/permissions does it need?
5. Why does the fai install process require fixed IP addresses? I'd like to
use dhcp without fixed addresses. This problem was really the reason
why I finally decided to do the installation manually.
FWIW, this is my situation/configuration:
Currently, I run a sid system on my workstation. For testing purposes, I
also used debootstrap to install potato and woody on separate partitions.
Recently, I ran out of disk space, and decided to get a new computer
(because the disk controller is old and slow). For this new computer,
I chose not to get yet another floppy and CD-ROM, since I rarely use either.
Therefore, I needed to do a remote install. I needed to build a custom
kernel, since the motherboard (ASUS P4B) was fairly recent and required new
drivers (particularly for the I845 chipset). I often have need for DHCP
here (Windows visitors), so I wanted to set up DHCP on my server anyway.
I was trying to figure out how to use fai in such a way that I could
(a) use my custom kernel,
(b) use my woody partition that was already insalled on my current
(old) workstation, and
(c) use DHCP.
When I finally succeeded in getting DHCP to recognize the NFS-boot server
with the custom kernel I'd built, I went ahead and proceeded with the
roll-my-own install.
From: Matthew Palmer mjp16@ieee.uow.edu.au
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 10:30:53 +1000 (EST)
How many host have you installed using fai ? No complete installs. Teething problems. Which version of fai you are using ? 2.0 How do you boot your host ? floppy disk. Do you use bootp or dhcp ? DHCP. I have to support Windows clients as well, and I wanted a single daemon to mess with, rather than several. Does the default kernel recognize all your hardware ? On every machine tried so far.
Additional comments: Doesn't work on base2_3.tgz and woody packages. Intend to use Potato install and an immediate upgrade to Woody on install clients. What is the business of your company/organisation? Student-run computing lab at a university. University of Wollongong, IEEE Student Branch.