There really hasn’t been a tool to unify all the ways you can install Linux–until now.

The most common way to do network installations is network booting via PXE, which requires setup of a TFTP server and DHCP configuration. However, PXE is not viable in some situations due to external constraints–for instance, what if your department does not have control of your DHCP server? What if you are at home and don’t have a server of your own? Solutions for installing machines without PXE are useful in those cases. For virtualization technology like Xen and KVM, other fully automatic installation solutions are required.

Cobbler is a universal boot server that sets up everything you need for software installation–PXE, reinstalls, and virtualization. You can set up a Cobbler boot server for your favorite distros in just a few minutes. And as your provisioning needs grow, you can take advantage of more advanced features to further automate and simplify your systems administration requirements.