SystemImager

SystemImager is software that automates Linux installs, software distribution, and production deployment at scale. It does image based provisioning of Linux for sites with a single machine or thousands of machines. All Linux distributions are supported, and packages are available for distributions that support RPM or Deb based packaging. Supported architectures include: x86_64, i386, parisc, ppc, ppc64, ppc64-iSeries, ppc64-ps3 (Sony PS3). Un-Supported architectures on which is has been reported to run include: s390x. It supports image capture and provisioning on nodes using GPT and msdos disk labels, and supports re-creation of both software RAID and LVM, including LVM on top of software RAID. Captured and provisioned file-systems can be any of FAT (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and VFAT), ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS, JFS, XFS, and swap. SystemImager supports auto-install, or provisioning, of nodes over a network via a number of transport protocols, including: rsync (the default), bittorrent (best choice at scale), rsync over SSH (fully encrypted start to finish operation supported), and multicast.

References:

• SystemImager Project Page on SourceForge
• SystemImager code repository on Github
• Creating Images Of Your Linux System With SystemImager
• SystemImager Documentation for use at The University of Waterloo