Makerspace IT/Computers

Current State

Windows

Windows machines are currently manually installed and configured.

Instructions on how to set up a PC in the makerspace can be found on the GDrive.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu machines are installed from a central PXE server, including installation of general packages and makerspace wide settings. These are designed to be easily reinstalled with very little effort if the OS gets broken in any way.

Imaging Server

winston.makernexus is available within the LAN, and acts as our DHCP, DNS, TFTP, apt-cache, and web server.

PXELINUX is used to netboot machines throughout the space, defaulting to booting from the client machine's local disk. Selecting any of the OS Install options will pull down Ubuntu netinstall configured by a preseed.txt from the web server. Preseed currently names machines based on a hash of their Ethernet MAC address, and will run a setup.sh script post-install to set up all of our customizations.

Wishlist

• Migration to Ubuntu in as many places as possible
• Automatic imaging of Windows machines
• Post-install config management (SaltStack?)
• Regular reimaging of machines
• Centralized storage solution