Author

Politehnica University of

Bucharest

Automatic Control and Computers

Faculty

Computer Science

Department

Supervisor

OS Imaging Solution

Alexandru Juncualexandru.juncu@cs.pub.ro

Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010

Conf. Dr. Ing. Răzvan Rughinișrazvan.rughinis@cs.pub.ro

Agenda

• System Imaging & UDP Cast• Shortcomings of UDP Cast• Benefits of a Centralised System• Architecture of the System• Conclusions• Q&A

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 2

System Imaging

• Software that copies HDD contents from one computer to others

• Offers scalability to administration of computer rooms (eg. School Laboratories)

• Takes advantage of UDP and Multicast• Uses a Seed Host to distribuite contents

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 3

Imaging Process1. Prepare hosts for imaging (physical network

conectivity)2. Install Operating System(s) and needed

applications on the Seed Host3. Start the sender process on the Seed and the

receiver process on the other hosts4. Transfer the contents over ther network

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 4

VOID VOID VOID VOIDVOID

Multicast

S R R R

UDP Cast

• Open Souce Project• http://udpcast.linux.lu/• udp-sender and udp-receiver

– (S) cat /dev/sda | udp-sender– (R) udp-receiver > /dev/sda

• Utilities– LiveCD for imaging– cast-o-matic

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 5

Shortcomings of UDP Cast

• The Archiving Problem• The Backup Problem• The Moving Problem

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 6

A Centralised Solution

• Client – Server Architecture

• Server– Always-On Service– Hosts several system images

• image information• version control of images

– Can become a seed upon request from a client– Not dependant on receiver’s hardware

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 7

A Centralised Solution

• Client– can send requests to server

• List system images• Create a system image• Update a partition or disk of a system image• Delete a system image• Request an image

– can be the receiver or just signal a request for server to seed

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 8

Backend

• Python as a framework– open source– large number of available libraries– platform independant

• client.py• server.py

• PXE21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 9

Client**************************************

*Welcome to the Imaging System Client*

**************************************

Available commands:

l: list images on server

c: create image

u: update image

d: delete image

r: request image

>>c

Creating image...

Available disks:

* sda

- sda5

- sda2

- sda1

Fill in description for the image (press CTRL-D to finish reading input)

new test images

Start transfer to server (it might take a long time)?[y/n]

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 10

Serverroot@hera:/home/alexj/imaging-system/server# tree images/

images/

├── 1

│ ├── info

│ ├── sda

│ │ ├── 1

│ │ ├── 2

│ │ └── 3

│ └── sdb

│ └── 1

├── 2

│ ├── info

│ └── sda

│ ├── 1

│ ├── 2

│ ├── 3

│ ├── 4

│ └── 5

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 11

Conclusions

• Centralised Imaging Solution– Archiving– Version control– Always-On Service

• Future Improvements– GUI for client– Secure Authentication– Differential Versioning

21.04.23 Bachelor Presentation Session - July 2010 12

Questions?

Thank you!