Cobbler - sibe/cobbler GitHub Wiki

Cobbler enables and manages the provisioning of operating systems from a central server onto multiple client machines. Cobbler has support for Red Hat based operating systems (including Fedora, CentOS and Scientific Linux), SuSE, and Debian (including Ubuntu).

Cobbler uses a tiered concept of Distributions, Profiles, Systems, and (optionally) Images and Repositories:

  • Distributions contain information about what kernel and initrd are used, plus metadata (required kernel parameters, etc).
  • Profiles associate a Distribution with a kickstart file and optionally customize the metadata further.
  • Systems associate a MAC, IP, and other networking details with a profile and optionally customize the metadata further.
  • Repositories contain yum mirror information. Using cobbler to mirror repositories is an optional feature, though provisioning and package management share a lot in common.
  • Images are a catch-all concept for things that do not play nicely in the "distribution" category. Most users will not need these records initially and these are described later in the document.

Cobbler logo