D.4 Novell ZENworks Linux Management Imaging Agent (novell-zislnx)

The Novell ZENworks Linux Management client (which includes novell-zislnx) should be installed on devices where you want to apply images. For information on installing the client on your devices, see the Installing the ZENworks Agent in the ZENworks Server Installation.

Installing the Linux Management client automatically installs the Novell ZENworks Linux Management Imaging Agent (novell-zislnx). The Imaging Agent’s purpose is to save certain device-unique data (such as IP addresses and host names) to an area on the hard disk that is safe from imaging. The Imaging Agent records this information when you install it on the device. Then the agent restores this information from the image-safe area after the device has been imaged. This allows the device to use the same network identity as before.

IMPORTANT:To read or write the image-safe data from or to the hard disk, you must set the MODE to ENABLE in the /etc/opt/novell/zenworks/preboot/novell-zislnx.conf file.

The Imaging Agent is installed on your imaging server by default when you install ZENworks Linux Management.

If a device is new and does not contain a unique network identity, the default settings that you have configured for the ZENworks Management Zone are applied when you image the device using a Preboot Services Imaging bundle.

The data that the Imaging Agent saves to (or restores from) the image-safe area includes the following:

  • Whether a static IP address or DHCP is used

  • If a static IP address is used:

    • IP address

    • Subnet mask

    • Default gateway (router)

  • DNS settings

    • DNS suffix

    • DNS hostname

    • DNS servers

The novell-zislnx daemon is generally run automatically. However, if you want to run it , for the command line arguments that can be used with the Imaging Agent, see Understanding the Arguments.

The following table lists the task that you can perform using the novell-zislnx command line options on a Linux device:

Table D-3 novell-zislnx Command Line Tasks

Task

Commands

Delete the data from ISD

/etc/init.d/novell-zislnx start clearISD

Set the Just Image flag

/etc/init.d/novell-zislnx start setJustImagedFlag

Reset the Just image flag

/etc/init.d/novell-zislnx start resetJustImagedFlag

Dump the ISD data on the terminal

/etc/init.d/novell-zislnx dump

Update the ISD, if there are any changes to it

/etc/init.d/novell-zislnx start/restart

NOTE:On a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), if you switch the network setup method from ifup to Network Manager and modify the DNS settings, the changed settings will be listed in the resolv.conf.netconfig file. As a result, the DNS name resolution will fail. To reconnect to the network, manually delete the resolv.conf file and restart the network service.