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>.