An unfortunate consequence of the curent CentOS and related OS distros is that the old reliable convention of expecting there to be an eth0 device to network through is pretty much shot. And when things are in total disaster mode, the less I need to remember to do, the better. I could do the master bootstrap functions via a stock Centos install DVD set and a kickstart file, but by creating a custom install with the essential packages and kickstart (and customization scripts/data), I can make this a completely unattended operation. The normal servers distribute their functions among many machines, VM’s and containers, but the master bootstrap compacts their core functions down onto one temporary machine. The master bootstrap doesn’t run in normal operations. One way is to define a master bootstrap server that can be used to rebuild the main provisioning systems. If a server dies, it’s relatively easy to reconstruct it.īut what if a meteor hits the server complex or war breaks out and I have to flee to Argentina? How do I minimize the time and effort required to reconstruct the essential frameworks? It has extensive provisioning capabilities, daily backups, filesystem mirroring and failovers for High Availability. The server farm is a fairly typical in-house setup. Why even bother with a custom install? Why indeed. So here goes with Yet Another How-To that I hope will fill some of the holes.

But unfortunately, actually trying to employ them can be frustrating. There are several existing How-To’s out on the Internet on the subject of creating a custom CentOS installation DVD/USB storage medium.

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