Installing Cobbler on POP! OS

Introduction

Cobbler is a Linux installation server that allows you to quickly and easily set up Linux servers. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the installation of Cobbler on POP! OS.

Prerequisites

• POP! OS Latest version installed
• Root access to the system

Step 1 - Install the required packages

Firstly, let's update the local package index and install the required packages for Cobbler:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cobbler cobbler-web debmirror apache2-utils

Step 2 - Configure Cobbler

Once the packages have been installed, we need to configure Cobbler. Open the "cobbler" configuration file in your favorite text editor:

sudo nano /etc/cobbler/settings

Change the following settings:

server: <your server's IP address or domain name>
next_server: <your server's IP address or domain name>
manage_dhcp: 1
manage_dns: 1
pxe_just_once: 1

Step 3 - Configure DNS

Next, we need to configure DNS. Open the "named" configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/cobbler/named.conf

Add the following lines at the beginning of the file:

// MANAGED BY COBBLER - DO NOT EDIT
zone "mycobbler.com" IN {
    type master;
    file "/etc/cobbler/zones/mycobbler.com.zone";
};

Step 4 - Create the DNS Zone file

Create a new DNS zone file in the "zones" directory:

sudo nano /etc/cobbler/zones/mycobbler.com.zone

Add the following lines to the file:

; MANAGED BY COBBLER - DO NOT EDIT
$ORIGIN mycobbler.com.
$TTL 86400
@       IN      SOA     ns1.mycobbler.com. root.mycobbler.com. (
                     2011042800         ; Serial
                     3600               ; Refresh
                     900                ; Retry
                     604800             ; Expire
                     86400 )            ; Minimum TTL
;
@       IN      NS      ns1.mycobbler.com.
@       IN      A       <your server's IP address>
ns1     IN      A       <your server's IP address>

Save and exit the file.

Step 5 - Generate the DHCP and DNS Configuration files

Generate the DHCP and DNS configuration files:

sudo cobbler get-loaders
sudo cobbler check
sudo cobbler sync

Step 6 - Start Apache and Cobbler services

Start the "apache2" and "cobblerd" services:

sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo systemctl start apache2

sudo systemctl enable cobblerd
sudo systemctl start cobblerd

sudo systemctl restart dhcpd

Step 7 - Log in to Cobbler Web Interface

Open your web browser and navigate to:

http://<your server's IP address>/cobbler_web

The Cobbler web interface should load.

Conclusion

You have successfully installed and configured Cobbler on POP! OS. You can now use it to manage Linux servers.