Automated Upgrades in a Lab Environment
Paul Riddle
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Abstract
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, when disk drives were expensive,
it was more economical to buy one server and configure it with enough
disk space to support several "diskless" workstations. Now that disks
are cheaper, most workstations now come with internal disks which
contain an entire bootable operating system.
Most vendors provide ways of automatically upgrading multiple
"diskless" workstations; unfortunately, the same is not true for
"diskfull" configurations. Upgrading "diskfull" workstations
typically involves either a lot of manpower or a lot of tedious,
repetitive work. In any moderate to large sized network, something
needs to be done to automate the upgrade process.
This paper describes a scheme which we use to upgrade our various
networks of Silicon Graphics workstations. Interestingly, it relies
on the same technology that allows "diskless" workstations to boot
over the network.
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