Capturing and deploying a Linux image

The Linux Scripting Toolkit provides sample jobs to perform operating system (OS) imaging tasks by using Altiris, such as capturing a copy of an installed OS (an OS image) and deploying the image to a target server.

About this task

You might need to perform RAID configuration on the target server before you can deploy the OS image to it. To run the Capture Linux Image sample job, the Altiris Agent must first be installed on the donor system. The Scripting Toolkit scripted OS installation jobs automatically install the Altiris Agent.
Note: The Capture Linux Image job is not supported for VMware ESX Server.

Procedure

To modify the file name and location of the captured image, perform the following steps:

  1. Double-click the Capture Linux Image job.
  2. Select the Create Disk Image task, and click Modify.
  3. Change the path and file name for the captured image.
  4. Click Finish to save it.
  5. Double-click the Deploy Linux Image job.
  6. Select the Distribute Disk Image task, and click Modify.
  7. Change the path and file name to the same values used above for the captured image.
  8. Click Finish to save the changes.
    Note:
    • When you deploy a target server by using the Image Install job, the image will include the Altiris Agent, because the donor server is required to have the Altiris Agent installed.
    • Because the Linux imaging sample jobs use a sector-based imaging technique, the donor and target servers must have identical hardware.
    • Altiris RapiDeploy, which is used for the cloning jobs, does not support cloning of multiple disks in a single pass. To work around this issue, you can place all of the Linux partitions on a single disk during installation by modifying the sample kickstart files to include the –ondisk parameter in the partition configuration part lines. Refer to the operating system documentation for additional information.
    • To specify the disk to be cloned, you must add the -d parameter, specifying the disk number, to the command line options for the Capture Linux Image and Deploy Linux Image jobs. For example, to clone the operating system image on disk two, you would add: -d2 to the command line options for the job.
    • If either the capture or deploy job fails, refer to the rdeploy log file for more information. By default, the log file location is $AltirisInstalledPath\RDeploy\Linux\x64\rdlog\ where $AltirisInstalledPath is the fully qualified path to the Altiris Deployment Solution directory. For example, C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\RDeploy\Linux\x64\rdlog\.