Diskless Remote Boot in Linux: Difference between revisions

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| caption = Graphical boot menu of DRBL.

| developer = NCHC Free Software Labs

| released = {{initialstart releasedate|2004|4|1}}

| latest_release_version = 2.2.11<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourceforge.net/projects/drbl/files/drbl_stable/|title = Diskless Remote Boot in Linux (DRBL) - Browse /Drbl_stable at SourceForge.net}}</ref>

| latest_release_date = {{releasestart date|2016|5|31}}

| operating system = [[Linux]]

| genre = Disk cloning, Disaster recovery, Network boot, PXE boot

| license = [[GNU General Public License]]

| website = [httphttps://drbl.sourceforge.net/ drbl.sourceforge.net]

}}

'''DRBL''' ('''D'''isklessDiskless '''R'''emoteRemote '''B'''ootBoot in '''L'''inuxLinux) is a [[Network File System (protocol)|NFS]]-/[[Network Information Service|NIS]] server providing a [[diskless client|diskless]] or systemless environment for client machines.

It could be used for

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* [[Live CD]].

Installation is possible on a machine with [[Debian]], [[Ubuntu (operating system)|Ubuntu]], [[Mandriva]], [[Red Hat Linux]], [[Fedora (operating system)|Fedora]], [[CentOS]] or [[SUSE S.A.|SuSE]] already installed. Unlikelike [[Linux Terminal Server Project|LTSP]], it uses distributed hardware resources and makes it possible for clients to fully access local hardware, thus making it feasible to use server machines with less power. ItDRBL also includes [[Clonezilla]], a partitioning and disk cloning utility similar to Symantec Ghost.

DRBL comes under the terms of the [[GNU GPL]] license so providing the user with the ability to customize it.

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DRBL allows one to set up multiple [[diskless node]]s with relative ease.

==HowInner it worksworkings==

The client computer is set to boot from the network card using PXE or Etherboot. The client requests an IP address, and tftp image to boot from, both are provided by the DRBL server. The client boots the [[initrd|initial RAM disk]] provided by the DRBL server via tftp, and proceeds to mount an [[network File System|nfs]] share (also provided by the DRBL server) as its root (/) partition. From there, the client boots either the linux distribution on which the DRBL server is installed, Clonezilla, or an installer for various Linux distributions, depending on how that particular client was configured on the DRBL server.

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All system resources reside on the local machine except storage, which resides on the DRBL server.

==System recommendations==

==Keys to a successful diskless node environment with DRBL==

The main bottleneck in a DRBL installation is between the storage on the DRBL server, and the client workstation. Fast storage on the server (RAID), and a fast network (Gigabit Ethernet), are ideal in this type of environment.

==External resources==

* [httphttps://drbl.sourceforge.netorg/ DRBL]

* [http://www.clonezilla.org/ Clonezilla]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Diskless Remote Boot In Linux}}

[[Category:Booting]]

[[Category:Network booting]]

[[Category:Provisioning]]

[[Category:Embedded Linux]]

[[Category:Linux software]]