So... I've got a little project to setup here, and I was hoping someone would be able to help.

I've got several systems, that are just going to be for number crunching. The total disk access is negligible, so I was planning on having all the machines boot off the same image on a server. In essence, have systems that run as though they're diskless, but keep /tmp and /var on the local disk. I don't want network installation, but network booting.

I've already got a DHCP server, NFS server, and TFTP server up and running.

I read somewhere (I'll have to find the link again) that one possibility is to install the system as normal on one system, modify a couple of files (such as /etc/fstab), and then just copy the entire contents to the TFTP shared directory.

Anyone have any helpful hints or tips? I'm going to be running CentOS on these systems, since it's been recommended for our applications. TIA!

maybe this could be helpful even if it's for Ubuntu:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DisklessUbuntuHowto

this could also be helpful:

http://drbl.sourceforge.net/about/

That's pretty much exactly the info I was looking for. Sure, it's for Ubuntu, but I'm sure I can modify it for my purposes.

Thanks!