Fully Automated Installation (FAI) is a group of

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

and

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

scripts that install and configure a complete

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

quickly on a large number of computers. It's the oldest automated deployment system for

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

Automation

FAI allows for installing Debian and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

distributions. But it also supports

CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a discontinued Linux distribution that provided a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream (softw ...

, Rocky Linux and SuSe Linux. In the past it supported

Scientific Linux Scientific Linux (SL) is a discontinued Linux distribution produced by Fermilab, CERN, DESY and by ETH Zurich. It is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This product is derive ...

Cern. By default a network installation is done, but it's easy to create an installation ISO for booting from CD or USB stick. There's a web service for FAI which is called FAI.me, which allows creating customized installation images without setting up your own FAI server. This service also creates cloud images and live images This service supports Debian and Ubuntu. Debian's cloud team uses FAI for creating their official cloud images. Similar software exists for

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

( Kickstart), SuSE ( AutoYaST,

YaST YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) is a Linux operating system setup and configuration tool. YaST is featured in the openSUSE Linux distribution, as well as in SUSE's derived commercial distributions. It is also part of the defunct United Linux. Y ...

and alice),

Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Sol ...

( Jumpstart) and likely other operating systems.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website

FAI.me web service
System administration Network management