NAME

       fai - Fully Automatic Installation

SYNOPSIS

       fai [options] ACTION
       fai [options] dirinstall DIRECTORY [options] install DIRECTORY

DESCRIPTION

       FAI allows for non-interactive initial installation and online maintenance ("softupdates")
       of operating systems according to a user-defined configuration.

       fai starts an  fai-action,  e.g.  an  installation  or  a  softupdate.   If  the  variable
       FAI_ACTION  is  defined,  this  action  will  be performed. The command line argument will
       override the value of FAI_ACTION. You can also define  your  own  actions  which  will  be
       executed when specified.

OPTIONS

       ACTION is required.

       -C CFDIR
              Use CFDIR as the configuration directory. Default is /etc/fai.

       -c|--class class[,class]
              Define  classes.   Multiple classes must be comma separated.  If not specified, use
              the shell environment variable $classes (space separated).   The  first  class  has
              lowest priority.

       -h|--help
              Show help, version and summary of options.

       -N|--new
              Renew  the  list of defined classes. By default, FAI uses the list of classes which
              was created during the first installation and skips calling fai-class(1). You  need
              this  option for the first softupdate if the system was not installed with FAI, you
              can also use it in subsequent runs.

       -s|--cspace <URL>
              URL of the config space. See fai.conf for more information on the format and  which
              types  of  protocol are supported.  This overrides the setting of FAI_CONFIG_SRC in
              /etc/fai.

       -u|--hostname <HOSTNAME>
              Use this hostname instead the output of the hostname command.  This  is  useful  in
              conjunction  with  the  dirinstall  action,  where  you  want  to manually define a
              hostname that should be used for defining classes and for  the  network  setup  and
              other  stuff.  There,  you  don't  want  the  name  of  the  host where you run fai
              dirinstall to be used - because programs in  a  chroot,  or  in  a  virtualized  OS
              instance should run with their own name, and install their own set of classes.

       -v|--verbose
              Create verbose output.

ACTIONS

       install
              starts a fully automatic installation:

              1. setup the fai environment (create ramdisk, get configuration data,...)

              2. define classes and variables

              3. partition the local hard disk and create file systems

              4. install new software packages

              5. call configuration scripts

              6. check and save the logfiles

       sysinfo
              starts a system rescue:

              1. setup the fai environment (create ramdisk, get configuration data,...)

              2. define classes and variables

              3. do different types of hardware detection and print hardware info

              4. save the logfiles

       softupdate
              starts a softupdate:

              1. fetch FAI configuration according to /etc/fai/fai.conf

              2. define classes and variables

              3. update the installed packages

              4. install new software

              5. call configuration scripts

              6. check and save the logfiles

       inventory
              print hardware inventory:

              1. setup the fai environment

              2. define classes and variables

              3. List information about CPU, RAM, network devices, hard disks

              4. save the logfiles

       dirinstall [DIR]
              Installation into a directory. This is nearly the same action as install except for
              skipping the task that partitions the hard disks  and  creates  the  file  systems.
              Classes  can  be  defined  with  option  -c,  or  by giving the hostname with -u or
              --hostname and enabling automatic definition by class scripts  from  hostname  with
              -N. (Without -N class scripts aren't executed)

NOTES

       Running with action "install" on a running system will almost certainly destroy it.

EXAMPLES

          fai -v -s file:///srv/fai/config -cDEFAULT,FAIBASE dirinstall /srv/etchroot

       This  command  will  do  an  installation  into  the directory /src/etchroot. For defining
       variables, selecting the software  packages  and  calling  the  customization  script  the
       classes DEFAULT, FAIBASE and LAST are used.

SEE ALSO

       This  program  is  the  central  part  of FAI (Fully Automatic Installation).  See the FAI
       manual for more  information  on  how  to  use  FAI.   The  FAI  homepage  is  http://fai-
       project.org.

AUTHOR

       This  manual  page  was  written  by Henning Glawe <glaweh@physik.fu-berlin.de> and Thomas
       Lange <lange@informatik.uni-koeln.de>.