7.2. Frontend Central Server

A Central Server is a Rocks Frontend node that can kickstart other frontends and provide rolls over the network, in a process called WAN kickstart. All Rocks frontends have the ability to act as central servers.

The standard Rocks distribution (located under /export/rocks/install) contains a distro suitable for WAN kickstart. The only steps you must take is to open "www" and "https" access on your frontend for the purpose of RPM package transfer. See Enable WWW access.

Note

Ensure that the hostname on central is fully qualified. Specifically, the "PublicHostname" value in the app_globals table of the database must be correct and reachable from the outside world.

7.2.1. Adding Rolls to Serve from a Central

You may wish to serve rolls from your central server that you have not installed during installation. All frontends will serve the rolls they were built with to client frontends, but often it is advantageous to serve other rolls as well.

First, you must download the Roll ISO image to your central. Then, execute:

# rocks add roll <rollname>*.iso