FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) vs PxeLab

FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) automates unattended deployment and configuration of Linux systems and software on physical computers and virtual machines. It is free software under GNU GPL version 2 or later and can scale from a few computers to several thousand. The project lists Debian, Ubuntu, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Linux Mint, RHEL, and SUSE among supported distributions. Installations can use PXE network boot or unattended CD media, retrieving configuration through HTTP, NFS, SVN, or Git. Classes group similar machines, while hooks customize installation stages. FAI can partition disks, create file systems, and configure software RAID or LVM. It automates virtual-machine installation and customized cloud images for OpenStack, KVM, Azure, EC2, and GCE. FAI.me builds custom installation or live media and bootable disk images without local FAI installation, with settings for SSH keys, repositories, packages, scripts, and first-boot actions. Targets include desktops, servers, notebooks, clusters, server farms, and Linux labs or classrooms. The default large CD image includes full Debian XFCE and GNOME packages but fetches many other distribution packages over the network.

PxeLab is an open-source PXE network boot platform that combines DHCP, TFTP, HTTP, DNS, and NFS in one binary. It runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS in server or desktop modes, with management available through a web interface, REST API, or command line. For provisioning, it offers a catalog of more than 64 Linux distributions, ISO uploads, an image library, answer-file templates, and install-task tracking. Its templates cover unattended installation workflows including autoinstall, preseed, kickstart, and autounattend. Boot profiles can use direct kernel, chain, WDS, sanboot, or local disk options, with rollback and host or group bindings. Host management includes inventory, scheduled Wake-on-LAN, BMC/IPMI power control, and CSV import. PxeLab also provides audit logs, live log streams, Prometheus metrics, MAC-based access control, and NFS IP/CIDR allowlists with read-only exports. Secure Boot is supported for UEFI x64 and ARM64. The software is licensed under AGPL-3.0. The Getting Started guide says deb and rpm packages, Homebrew, and Docker images remain on the roadmap.