Flexible Deployment

Introduction

For ongoing support from FOSS community the flexible deployment media should be designed for widespread use as both a "live" pocket personal computing environment and repository media useful in maintaining any kind of deployment.

Initial

To get started provide a simple enhanced "live USB" for fedora 14 for use as a personal environment that can be booted up with any modern PC without affecting that PC at all and later used to backup the existing system on that PC, install fedora 14 fully and/or restore the PC to its exact previous state as though it had never been touched.

The following enhancements to a standard live USB will be needed:

1. Initial MSDOS compatible partition. (Assume this will facilitate later incorporation of deployments to android smartphones and cardpods).
2. Complete fedora 14 (64 bit) image to mount for installing on PCs. (Can later add or replace with 32 bit version?)
3. Capability for full fedora 14 installation to same media as the live media itself. (With choice of customized kickstart etc).
   
4. Option for permanent home directory on live media itself or on separate media.
5. Option for swap space on separate media. Both to use a file on existing PC operating system or to use a separate smaller flash drive to reduce costs if heavy usage by swap wears out the flash.
6. Option for /var on separate media. Same reasons as 5.
7. Options for encryption.
8. Planned space for upgrades and other software repository.
9. Fully automated backup system to parent and grandparent backups on physically separate media including hard disk files, online and DVD.
   
10. Release as fedora package that can be included in future fedora releases and possibly even fedora live releases to automatically generate the flexible deployment system from any existing fedora. (Design portably so easily ported to other distributions).
    

Plan

1. Read installation documentation carefully with full initial scope in mind but not thinking about anything later.
2. Implement minimum needed for personal environment that can provide email and backups reliably and should be easy to upgrade.
3. Do it for 8GB live USB flash with separate 4GB swap flash and separate parent and backup hard disks that can also be used for swap and repository and as standalone flexible deployment system (ie live USB boot from same external hard disk used for backups.
4. Use devkit-disk --dump to record flash info before dd. Also copy mbr and partition boot record/superfloppy boot sector. Also use cfdisk, sfdisk, fdisk?
5. Use the forensic spin LiveCD so that tools available.
   

Later

1. Forensic dump and/or configuration and selective backup and restore of existing PC to same media as live USB or other media.
2. Especially dump and restore pre-installation software on new laptops.
3. Checksums of files to just record windows and other stuff that has already been dumped and need not waste further space to recover.
4. Support for cardpods.
5. Support for android smartphones
6. Adapting to flash memory physical layouts that minimize wear.
7. Full repository system etc etc 
8. BKO, BFO, iPXE for netboot.
9. EFI stuff (for Intel Mac)
10. Windows media IDs.
11. Windows Preboot etc.
12. Grub2 (wait fill in Fedora).
    

Notes while reading installation docs