Deploying Debian 5 GNU/Linux with Insight Control for Linux 6.2

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distribution’s set of packages. Thus, most early attempts at creating a mirror copy far more packages
than strictly necessary for the Debian distribution you want to use.
ISO media is by far the simpler and more efficient way to get what you want in the smallest amount of
time possible.
Note that a complete set of ISO media entails the entire set of packages defined to be part of a
version and release; it can be quite large. At present, Debian 5.0r3 contains over 18,000 packages.
The CD-ROM ISO media is spread across 22 ISO images. The DVD ISO media is spread across 3
ISO images. The size of a complete set of ISO images is about 4.5 GB for each DVD, or 13.5 GB
total. If you cannot afford the time to download the media, purchasing physical media online is a
valid alternative, which you can update using a Jigsaw download session.
Another approach is to download only the ISO media images you need to get started — generally
only the first ISO image for installation and then discover which ISO images are required for
additional packages by using the Debian online search engine.
Finally, after installation and if you have realtime access to the Internet and trust the sources, you can
configure the dselect package library APT sources to download additional packages from an
online Mirror. This is not a workable option if you are on a secured network or in a datacenter
without Internet access and no local Mirror. Consequently, it is good to have a complete local copy of
the ISO media for your Debian version.
Prerequisites
There are a number of prerequisites to the installation of Debian GNU/Linux. After the prerequisites
are fulfilled, the only thing you need to change from one installation target to the next is the target
MAC address (media access controller hardware addresses): change it to match the MAC address of
the PXE enabled Ethernet port of the target server.
Reading the Installing a Custom Operating System with HP Insight
Control for Linux white paper
Insight Control for Linux treats Debian5 as a custom OS installation. HP provides a white paper titled
Installing a Custom Operating System with HP Insight Control for Linux that describes the background
information and the steps required for installing a custom OS like Debian5. You can find this white
paper from the Insight Control for Linux Manuals website:
1. Open a web browser to the following web address:
www.hp.com/go/ic-linux
2. On the right side of the page, click Product Documentation (All Versions).
3. Find the title you want, and click on it to view the PDF file online or download the PDF file to your
computer.
Installing a Custom Operating System with HP Insight Control for Linux describes the following scripts,
which are necessary for a successful custom OS installation, in detail:
• encrypt_passwd
• auto_config
• boot_stanza
Insight Control for Linux provides example scripts and an installation configuration file (for example, a
preseed file) in the /opt/repository/instconfig/custom/examples/Debian5 directory.
These examples are referenced throughout this document.