DRBL

What DRBL is

DRBL is free, open-source software for deploying GNU/Linux from one server to many client machines. It can provide a diskless or systemless setup in which clients boot over PXE or etherboot without installing GNU/Linux on each client hard drive. DRBL says clients can use distributed hardware resources while retaining full access to local hardware, and that existing systems such as Windows are unaffected because client drives are not touched. The software includes Clonezilla for partitioning and disk cloning. Administrators can switch boot modes, copy files, manage user accounts, and send commands to all clients. DRBL uses PXE/etherboot, NFS, and NIS to provide network services, and supports network and multicast deployment. The installation guide lists Debian Bullseye and Buster, Ubuntu Jammy and Focal, CentOS 7, Scientific Linux 7.x, and RHEL 7.x as supported server distributions; it says other distributions or versions will not work. Setup is described as complicated for beginners. DRBL Live comes as an ISO for CD/DVD or a ZIP for USB flash drives or hard drives, with amd64, i686-pae, and i686 builds.