Summary

It’s been my experience that JumpStart is not widely used, mainly because of its complexity. Many system administrators would rather go through an interactive installation for each system than automate the process. Many of the popular UNIX systems have installation programs similar to JumpStart, and most are underutilized. System administrators could save a great deal of time if they would only learn more about this type of installation.

I’ve described the entire process of installing a networked system via JumpStart. I described how to set up the boot server, the install server, and the configuration files located on the configuration server. I also described the procedures that need to be performed for each client that you plan to install. A common question asked is, “Can I use JumpStart to create a recovery image for my system?” The answer is yes, and it’s referred to as a Flash archive. I’ll describe how to do it in the next chapter, “Web Start.”