NAME

       fai - Fully Automatic Installation

SYNOPSIS

       fai [options] ACTION
       fai [options] dirinstall DIRECTORY
       fai [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.  You need
              the script class/01-classes in your config space for this to work, since -c only sets the variable
              $cmdlineclasses.

       -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 https://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>.