bruce wrote:
phill....
thanks for the followup/being patient... initially, i'd like to be able to
walk through the entire process from a remote system. thus the need for/use
of vnc.
i was hoping that i could somehow reboot the remote server, and have vnc pop
up on my server/vnc window, allowing me to select the various attributes of
the remote Fedora install on the remote machine...
this would allow me to be able to do a manual remote install of Fedora,
using VNc..
the reason i wanted to do this, is to allow me to check out the drive
configuration, and to determine what apps i wanted to select at the
beginning...
if this isn't possible, then i guess the next step would be to create a
kickstart file, and somehow do the install that way.
the machine wil be booting off a harddrive. once i get the machine up, i
could then always use yum to keep it updated...
thanks
-bruce
-----Original Message-----
From: kickstart-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:kickstart-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Philip Rowlands
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 5:27 PM
To: Discussion list about Kickstart
Subject: RE: trying to setup for a remote installation
On Thu, 28 Apr 2005, bruce wrote:
in order to do a remote FC3 installation, using vnc, it appears that i need
to create a floppy bootdisk, copy a kickstart file to it, place the FC3
ISOs
on a HTTP server, and add the required VNC commands to the bootloader of
the
kickstart file.
Hi Bruce,
I think I may have clouded rather than clarified the kickstart process:
- Do you want to automate the installation (i.e. launch it and
walk away), or go through the prompts (disk layout, package
selection) manually?
Kickstart files are necessary only in the first case; kickstart is not
needed simply to perform a remote install.
- How will the machine be booted up?
Floppy images are severely lacking when it comes to network
installation; you'd have to mess around with driver disks, which isn't
much fun. CD would be simplest; PXE (i.e. boot entirely from the
network) is another option, but requires DHCP, TFTP, HTTP/NFS servers.
- What's the purpose of the VNC invocation?
Is the machine in an inaccessible rack/office somewhere? Does the bootup
to install have to work entirely "hands-off", or is there someone to
insert a floppy/CD?
To put a kickstart file on the harddisk, this is the syntax (from
kickstart-docs.txt):
ks=hd:<device>:/<file>
e.g. ks=hd:sda3:/mydir/ks.cfg
Cheers,
Phil
Bruce -
Are you able to get your hands on another machine that you can test
with, or even VMWare, from which you can load a virtual machine for
testing? This is a step I always take. In fact, I've been doing
kickstarts with varying success for ~2 years, and I've still not been
able to muster the manhood to attempt a total remote installation such
as the one that you're asking.
I'd highly suggest testing the remote install method on a machine which
you can just fool around with, before going about the real thing.
Thanks
-dant
