Table of Contents
This first boot menu, will only allow you to boot on the local hard disk, or if you choose the second entry, to tell the LRS to manage your PC. In that case, you'll be asked for a client name, and for a password which can be found in Section 14.7, “Passwords”.
If the password is correct, you will see the following menu:
From this boot menu, you'll be able the launch the system back ups and restorations. As the contents of the boot menu is controlled by the Webmin interface, the LRS administrator can give lots of freedom to enable the end-users to make the back ups themselves or, on the contrary can remotely decide what the PC will do on the next reboot.
Notes:
If you checked the "Hidden menu" option, then a countdown of a few seconds (defined by "timeout xxx" tag) will take place. It is possible to call the menu by pressing "Left shift - Alt - Right shift." If nothing is done, then the default menu entry will be executed, which in most cases will be to boot on the local disk.
If the "Hidden menu" option is not selected, the menu is directly displayed. The menu is built from the workstation's configuration file (except on first boot: the configuration file will be the "default" one).
You can see the client's boot menu by clicking, in the main list, on the "screen" icon of the client ("system" column).
According to the images created afterward, it is possible to modify the boot menu of each client (or of the machines of the group and/or of profiles, if necessary) via this page. You can allow or prevent the display of some options, choose a default action, or customize the text of the boot menu, like the figure below:
The boot menu page allows to select the entries which will be displayed on the client's screen at boot time. Each entry represents an action that can be executed at PC boot time.
Columns description:
Default choice: Selects a default behavior if no selection is made by the user on the client side prior to the timeout.
Display: By selecting one or more options in this column, you determine which options will be displayed in the client boot menu. At least one option must be chosen.
Menu: In this column are printed the names of the options. You can modify these names by simply clicking on them.
Description: Contains a short description of each action. You can modify these names by simply clicking on them.
Default W: Default choice after a Wake-On-LAN.
Display W: Whether this entry is displayed or not after a Wake-On-LAN
Tabs description:
The Images button provides a more advanced management of the boot menu and the images owned by a client host. (see Section 4.3, “Client Images”)
The Options button allows you to specify the storage units to backup (full disk and / or partitions), and the boot menu behavior. (See Section 4.5, “Boot and back up options”).
The Log button shows the last 20 important events related to the client (see logs).
Once changes are made, don't forget to click on the Apply button, to commit all menu modifications. When you click on this button, you rebuild the boot menu which will be sent to the client.
![[Warning]](/ucome.rvt/any/en/Produits/LRS/details/doc/img/warning.png) | |
Updating a menu for a profile and / or a group will erase the menu of each computer belonging to that profile or group. Local images will be kept. Please exercise caution when updating a profile or group. |
The aim of this page is to move/remove disks images between boot menu, local directory, and the directory containing shared images.
We can see three tables:
The Boot menu table: Shows images currently associated with the host's boot menu. The contents in this table are the same as those seen on the previous page (and whose name is also boot menu ).
The Local images table: Images in this table belong to the current client, but do not appear in the boot menu. Example: when you make a new backup image, its name will automatically appear in this table. This table is not available when you are modifying the entries for the menu of a profile and / or a group !
The Shared images table: Contains predefined images, which are available, and can be shared between all registered hosts. It also contains 'special images' which will make a backup or launch a post-installation.
These three tables have a common structure. For each of them, the three columns located on the left side are respectively the following:
The Menu column gives the image name. This is the name shown on the right side of a boot menu.
The Description column is a short description of the image in the menu column.
The Directory column contains the name of the directory associated with the related images. For example, if a local image directory is named Local-1, it means image's data is located in the (basedir)/images/MAC/Local-1 directory on the server. If it is a shared image, then data are now located into the (basedir)/imgbase/Base-1 directory. NOTE: Sometimes, some directory names in a table are displayed with a little arrow following them, like this:
. It means that the name preceding the arrow is not a real
directory, but a symbolic link pointing to the actual directory.
Internally, these symbolic links are useful to do some optimizations,
like saving disk space when the same shared image is used by several
clients.
The remaining columns (on the right side of the tables) contain links allowing different operations. These actions can vary according to the table where the action is associated. Each action takes the shape of a particular icon, as shown below:
| Operation | Description |
|---|---|
 | Remove an image |
 | Move or copy an image to the upper level table |
 | Copy an image to the top level table. This action is only possible for a shared image type. |
 | Move or copy an image to the lower level table. |
 | Impossible or invalid operation. This icon appears when one of the operations above is not possible. Click onto the icon to read more about the related problem. |
 | Allows building a recovery CD for the selected image. |
 | Allows selection of which partitions to restore and to view back up logs for the image (see Section 4.7, “Image details”). |
Regarding the type of the table, the number and the resulting effects of these operations differ:
| Operation | The Boot menu table |
|---|---|
| Column To Local . Transfers an image to the local images table. It removes from the boot menu page. To reverse the operation, see the To Menu column in the local images table. |
| Operation | The Local images table |
|---|---|
| Column Remove . Remove an image. |
| Column To Menu. Transfers an image to the boot menu table. The transferred image becomes available in the boot menu page. |
| Column To shared. Move an image to the shared images table. The image becomes available to the boot menu of all other hosts. |
| Operation | The Shared images table |
|---|---|
| Column To Menu. It duplicates a shared image to the boot menu table. Actually, it creates an image reference. In other words, only image attributes are copied, not its data, because the data must be shared with all other hosts which are currently using this image in their boot menu. You can not remove images from this table. In order to do that, please go to the Shared images table, which is reachable from the module's index page. |
| |
Updating a menu for a profile and / or a group will erase (or more exactly replace) the menu of each computer belonging to them. Local images will be kept. |
For each newly declared host, some special images are automatically added in the new host's boot menu. Although appearing as images in the LRS module interface, these images are in fact system or utility functions. These functions are involved in LRS consistency, so it is very important for the LRS administrator to distinguish the automatically generated images from normal disk images.
Local disk: Probably the most important option in the user boot menu. It allows a normal boot from the host's local hard disk.
Floppy: Allows the computer to boot from a floppy disk.
Create a local image: Leads to the creation of a local image backup. After the backup the default boot menu entry is set to the first item.
Create a shared image: Allows the creation of a shared image backup. Once the backup is completed, the resulting image will become automatically a shared image. This shared image will be usable for the restoration of any host. After the back up, the default boot menu entry is set to the first item.
Memory test: This menu option leads to the execution of a simple utility whose aim is to test the computer's central memory. Very useful to track hardware failures.
MBR Fix: A utility used to restore a hard disk's boot sector, by installing a generic boot loader.
Post-installation: Will launch the post-installation script assigned to the client (available under the boot options tab). Useful for software deployment, patch installation, and custom modifications of the OS.
Post-installation (group): Similar to the post-installation above, but the post-installation script is the same for all clients which use this image, and not specific to a particular client.
| |
Most of these options are required in order to have a correct system execution, and it is strongly recommended to not remove them completely from the server. |
The Options tab allows you
First, to specify the storage units to back up (full disk and/or partitions). Each disk is displayed as well as their partitions. The check boxes are interpreted:
An unchecked partition will not receive a back up.
An unchecked disk will not receive a back up.
(menu available only when editing a single client, and only if the client has booted over PXE at least one time)
And, to specify the boot menu behavior or backup options:
The timeout in seconds after which the default menu entry is executed.
Whether the boot menu is displayed or not with the Hidden menu check box.
Whether access to GRUB's command line is allowed or not during the client's boot with the GRUB command line access check box.
Which network interface to use during the DHCP request just before starting a backup with the Network interface number check box. By default, the 1st network interface is used (NIC number 0).
The possibility to restore an image on a smaller disk with "Backup: do not check the HD size".
The debug activation during a backup with "Backup: debug". Reserved to experts.
The modification of the NT boot loader to allow Windows to boot properly after a restoration to a disk with a different geometry, with "Restoration: update the NT boot loader if the HD has changed".
You are also able to select a post-installation script from here, which will apply only to the current computer (menu available only when editing a single client).
| |
Updating a menu for a profile and / or a group will only erase (or more exactly replace) the menu of each computer belonging to them. Local images will be kept. |
The Shared images page can be accessed from the Webmin's module main page. It shows a listing of all shared images currently stored on the LRS server. All images shared between client hosts are displayed here.
Shared image: Contains directory names associated with each shared image stored on the server. These shared images are located in the directory (basedir)/imgbase .
Title: This column contains a title for each shared image. These titles are the same which appear on a client's boot menu.
Description: A brief image description.
Used by: This column displays which host(s) are currently using a particular image in its boot menu. Each host name in this column (if any) is a link to the image configuration of this host.
The image Size in megabytes.
Remove: The links in this column allow complete removal of one or more images. Note that you cannot remove an image if it is currently used in a host's boot menu (see the Used by column). In order to remove an image in a host's boot menu, you must first delete the image entry from the host's boot menu.
Conv. to Local: Allows conversion of a shared image to a local one.
Burn: If an icon is shown, you can build a recovery CD with this image.
Details: If a magnifying glass is shown, you can see more image details by clicking on it (see below).
By clicking on the magnifying glass next to each hard disk image you will see the following page:
It allows you to choose which partitions to restore, and whether to restore the partition table. You can also check that the backup ran without a hitch, and view full backup logs (which can be sent to Linbox technical support if you find a problem).
You can select a post-installation script which will automatically run after the image is restored, and edit the script at your convenience. For more details, please read Chapter 11, Post-installation Scripts Development Guide.
The post-installation system allows you to run shell scripts after having restored an image and before restarting the target system. The post-installation scripts have many usages:
System Re-installation: Windows XP system images have to be reinitialized if restored on a different computer than the original one (operation similar to performing an OEM installation).
ActiveDirectory Domains: The Windows 2000 and post SID must be reset if restored on a different computer than the original one to able them to automatically join an Active Directory domain after re-installation.
Application Deployment: It is sometimes useful to install a selection of software on a freshly restored image (such as software used by the LRS: TightVNC, OCS Inventory, OpenSSH), but also to automatically run software updates (viruses databases, services-pack, etc).
Logs are used to view important events related to the LRS clients. The 'logs' tab, on the main list, can be used to get a summary of the clients' state :
On that summary page, the last 3 events are shown as well as the last restored image. The summary page allows verification of the restoration a client group, as you can see above.
To get more details, you can click on the magnifying glass in the right column:
Each event is associated to a colored icon, which is :
Gray, for neutral events (client's boot, entry chosen, default entry changed),
Green, for completed event (completed backup, restoration or post-installation),
Orange, for actions in progress (started back up, restoration or post-installation),
Red, for critical errors (read/write error on the client's HD).
Usually, an orange blinking LED should always be followed by a green LED. A critical error (red), requires a manual intervention on the client to resolve the issue.
Wake On LAN allows you to remotely start a client or a group of
clients. In order to wake up a client, click on the clock icon
(
)
related to your client.
You should then see a page similar to this one below:
On that page, modify the 'Run on date' and 'Run at time' fields to schedule the WOL.
In the end, hit the 'Create' button. When the client wakes up, it will execute the default LRS boot menu entry.
Notes: You can assign a client to a group with the [Rename] button found on the client's menu page, and then wake a group of clients.
If you need to broadcast the WOL packets on different subnets, you can specify the broadcast addresses in the system backup configuration tab, in the 'list of broadcast addresses for WOL packets' text entry box.
If you cannot boot via PXE, (i.e. you have an old laptop with a Cardbus NIC), you can try the LRS boot CD available at ftp://ftp.linbox.com/pub/lrs/base/lrscd/.
This CD has support for most 32 bits Cardbus NICs found in old laptops. 16 bit PCMCIA cards are not supported.
After booting the CD, you will see the screen below. Hit "enter" to choose the first menu entry and the client will try to connect to the LRS using information given by the DHCP server as usual.
If no DHCP server is found, you will see the following screen, which allows you to:
Retry configuration of the NIC using DHCP.
Manually set-up the NIC configuration and the LRS server IP address (if you know the DHCP cannot be used on this computer). You will have to enter the client's IP address, the netmask, the default gateway and the LRS IP address.
Put log files on a floppy disc to send them to the LRS support team (if you know that DHCP should work, and you suspect that your NIC is not detected by the LRS).
If you want to manualy set the IP address, or if you chose the second CD-Rom boot entry ("Static IP"), you will have to provide network parameters in a series of screens like the one below:
As soon as the LRS is located, you'll see a menu similar to the PXE one, but only entries related to backup and restoration are valid. Backing-up or restoring a disk image then works the same way as PXE and DHCP mode.
