So time for a technical question, a bit long winded I'm afraid...
I have a number of customer systems which are running openSuSE versions 11 and 12 which need to be upgraded to 13.2. These systems have been specially configured to run certain piece of software so they are highly configured and although the base is the same, they do have a number of files which are specific to that customer. The problem is, is that you cannot do an upgrade from any version prior to 13.1 to 13.2 which makes it rather difficult. I have procedures in place to back up their data (the system is basically two parts, OS with applications and data) and to backup their OS/application section and luckily it seems that most systems have a primary partition which is the same size. Each customer is different so my plan is to somehow create a 'golden master' which can then be cloned for each customer as I have a script which they'll initially run and that sends their system information to an FTP server.
My first thought was to get the customers to install autoyast2, run it, send me the XML and I could build a customised DVD which would basically install 13.2 with all their customisations. That has been thrown out for a number of reasons as (a) I need as little as possibly user (read customer) manual interaction and (b) I forgot, some of the systems are RedHat
I'm now looking at using susestudio which looks to be nearly the answer apart from you can only define the disks using LVM which I don't but could be taken into account plus a few other little bits and pieces. I can create a 'golden master' and then clone it so that the ISO is customised per customer (such as data, networking, etc.) but there is still some manual interaction (and I can't get it to fully work!)
What would be nice, would be to create a local iso and then clone that with all customisations but that looks like a non-starter...
I do have another alternative and that is to go onsite and do it all but I'm ruling that out as they're spread across the globe.
So my question(s) are, has anybody done something like this before or any ideas, pointers, etc. Many thanks for all your knowledgeable answers in advance
I have a number of customer systems which are running openSuSE versions 11 and 12 which need to be upgraded to 13.2. These systems have been specially configured to run certain piece of software so they are highly configured and although the base is the same, they do have a number of files which are specific to that customer. The problem is, is that you cannot do an upgrade from any version prior to 13.1 to 13.2 which makes it rather difficult. I have procedures in place to back up their data (the system is basically two parts, OS with applications and data) and to backup their OS/application section and luckily it seems that most systems have a primary partition which is the same size. Each customer is different so my plan is to somehow create a 'golden master' which can then be cloned for each customer as I have a script which they'll initially run and that sends their system information to an FTP server.
My first thought was to get the customers to install autoyast2, run it, send me the XML and I could build a customised DVD which would basically install 13.2 with all their customisations. That has been thrown out for a number of reasons as (a) I need as little as possibly user (read customer) manual interaction and (b) I forgot, some of the systems are RedHat
I'm now looking at using susestudio which looks to be nearly the answer apart from you can only define the disks using LVM which I don't but could be taken into account plus a few other little bits and pieces. I can create a 'golden master' and then clone it so that the ISO is customised per customer (such as data, networking, etc.) but there is still some manual interaction (and I can't get it to fully work!)
What would be nice, would be to create a local iso and then clone that with all customisations but that looks like a non-starter...
I do have another alternative and that is to go onsite and do it all but I'm ruling that out as they're spread across the globe.
So my question(s) are, has anybody done something like this before or any ideas, pointers, etc. Many thanks for all your knowledgeable answers in advance
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