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@cs.uni-koeln.de>.

FAI 4                                             December 2013                                           fai(8)