[syslinux] Random numbers in pxe config

[Matt Wallace]

On Wednesday 17 Nov 2010 17:33:21 Gene Cumm wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 11:47, Alexey Ivanov <rbtz at yandex-team.ru> wrote:
> >   Is there a way to produce random number for pxemenu?
> > 
> >   For example i need to balance load between 10 web-servers, so I need
> >   something like:
> >     APPEND netboot=http://boot-serv-$RANDOM10/system.img
> > 
> >   Another example is when 1000 boxes starts up at the same time (after
> >   e.g. Datacenter power failure) it'll be useful to have random values in
> >   timeout:
> >     TIMEOUT $RANDOM120
> 
> At this time, all config files are static.  That said, you could use
> gpxe/gpxelinux.0 instead of core/pxelinux.0 and retreive your config
> from an HTTP server that runs a server-side script to make this
> randomized data.

How about using something like Linux-HA to setup a shared IP that is 
distributed across all the servers using ldirectord or even placing the shared 
IP Address on an internal interface of a loadbalancer and let the config get 
picked up from there?

M.