Contents of the CD-ROM
The WolfPrep imaging CD-ROM is used to download images from the Zen imaging server to a workstation. It is not necessary to create or use a CD-ROM if you plan to use the scripting phase of WolfPrep. Using the imaging CD-ROM is an excellent way to quickly deploy a large number of workstations and be assured that they all have identical software configurations.
On the WolfPrep Imaging CD-ROM, there is a bootable SuSE linux installation environment, as well as some sample drivers and the Windows program imgexp.exe used to create drivers, and the MS Sysprep files used to create the Wolfprep images.
Getting the CD-ROM
The WolfPrep CD-ROM is distributed as a standard ISO image, which can be "burned" onto a physical CD under a variety of operating systems. If you do not have CD-R/RW hardware and need to burn a CD, you can use one of the ITD student labs which use the "Nero" CD authoring software.
The WolfPrep ISO is kept on ITD's Site License Volume, under the "ITD" folder. It is named "WolfPrep" followed by the date that the CD was last updated (eg WolfPrep20060717.ISO would be the filename for the WolfPrep CD made on July 17, 2006.
Booting the CD-ROM
Your computer must be capable of booting from a CD-ROM (most are). You may need to configure your BIOS to boot from a CD-ROM, the steps for which vary by PC model. On Dell Systems, you can press the F12 during startup to bring up a "Boot Device Menu" from which you can select either on-board or USB connected CD-ROMs.
The CD-ROM will offer a brief "Welcome" screen and then display a menu.
On the left hand side of the screen, under the "N" logo, is a display of how many seconds until the CD-ROM will automatically boot and perform it's default actions.
This is so that during the installation of large labs, one only needs to boot the CD-ROM and walk away for the install to take place. No additional input is needed.
A delay of 180 seconds, or 3 minutes should give enough time to change defaults if you desire, without unecessary delay if you're using the defaults.
THE WOLFPREP PROCESS WILL OVERWRITE ALL DATA on the primary hard drive. DO NOT boot this CD-ROM on a machine that hasn't been backed up or that contains valuable data!
You can always speed things up with the enter key, which will cancel the countdown and perform the indicated action.
In the center of the screen are the menu items from which you can choose. Use the UP and DOWN arrows to change the selection, and cancel the automatic timeout.
The options that you will select most often asre "wolfprep", "multicast", and "master."
If you press ENTER while "wolfprep" is selected, an image from the server will be downloaded and installed on the individual computer. You can optionally select which image to download by using BACKSPACE to change the "default" image to an image of your choosing. There is a list of the images available on the server on the Microsys Web Page.
Note that there cannot be any spaces around the equals sign, and case is important. To indicate that the "winxp20060717" image was desired, the boot options would read
IMAGE=winxp20060717
Installing the WolfPrep image on many computers at once
If you are installing many computers at once, it is most efficient to install one computer (the master) with the image that you want, and then use that computer to multicast to the other machines.
The "master" selection identifies a multicast master server, and "multicast" indicates a multicast client.
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