Cobbler is a Linux installation server that allows to easily install and configure multiple Linux distributions. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Cobbler on Elementary OS Latest.
Before we begin, make sure your system is up-to-date:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
First, we need to install Cobbler. To do so, open the terminal and enter the following command:
sudo apt-get install cobbler
Once the installation is complete, we need to configure Cobbler. Open the configuration file /etc/cobbler/settings in a text editor such as nano:
sudo nano /etc/cobbler/settings
Find the following lines and edit them to match your network configuration:
server: "192.168.1.100" # IP address of your server
next_server: "192.168.1.100" # IP address of your server
manage_dhcp: 1 # set to 1 if you want Cobbler to manage DHCP
manage_dns: 1 # set to 1 if you want Cobbler to manage DNS
dhcp-range: "192.168.1.50 192.168.1.254" # range of IPs to allocate
Save and close the file.
Next, we need to import a Linux distribution to our server. We can do this by downloading the ISO image and copying it to the /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/ directory. For example, to import Ubuntu 20.04, we can use the following commands:
sudo mkdir /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/ubuntu/20.04
sudo mount -o loop /path/to/ubuntu-20.04-server-amd64.iso /mnt
sudo rsync -a /mnt/ /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/ubuntu/20.04/
sudo umount /mnt
Note that you will need to replace /path/to/ubuntu-20.04-server-amd64.iso with the path to the ISO image on your system.
Now we can create a new system in Cobbler. To do so, use the following command:
sudo cobbler system add --name=my-new-system --profile=generic
Replace my-new-system with a name for your system. You can use the --profile option to select a profile, which specifies the distribution and other settings for the system.
Finally, we need to start the Cobbler service:
sudo systemctl start cobblerd.service
sudo systemctl start cobblerd.socket
And enable it to start automatically on boot:
sudo systemctl enable cobblerd.service
sudo systemctl enable cobblerd.socket
That's it! Cobbler is now installed and configured on your Elementary OS Latest system. You can now use it to install Linux distributions on your network.
If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!
Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!
