trying to setup for a remote installation

[Stuart Sears]

On Thursday 28 April 2005 19:28, bruce wrote:
> hi...
>
> new to setting up kickstart for remote installation.
>
> here's what i'd like to do. i'd like to be able to remotely access a
> server, and use VNC to graphically go through the fedora installation
> process. the server currently has RH8 on it.
and you therefore have grub?
cool.
you can copy the pxe kernel and ramdisk to you RH8 server over the network - 
dump them in /boot and add  a stanza to grub to use them - this is very much 
like  booting from a CD in the first place.
Do you have a DHCP server?
others will be able to crrect any mistakes I make here, hopefully
if you use an NFS install you can leave the ISO images intact if you would 
like to (or extract the files from them if you prefer).
this will assume that you have put the ISOs/install tree on a *server* in an 
NFS accessible directory...

the GRUB part:

add at the bottom of the file

title Install Fedora Core 3
	#whatever root is set to for your existing entries
	root (hd0,0)  
	# copy these files from CD1/images/pxeboot
	kernel /vmlinuz vnc
	initrd /initrd.img

you can change the  "default=" line at the top of the file so that the new 
entry is the default option (remember that GRUB counts from 0 not 1, so the 
second title entry is number 1 etc etc )

I can't remember offhand whether the boot kernel relies on more arguments than 
that. I don't think so but I'm not sure. if you already have a  kickstart 
file you could pass ks=... on the kernel line as well.
perhaps someone else can chip in and let you know this.
>
> as we understand it, you can place the FC3 isos on a HD on another system,
> and access the isos via the kickstart file. however, our questions have to
> do with how/what to do to implement what we're trying to do.
>
> so.. our questions...
>
> -can we do what we want to do, allowing us to use VNC
yes I think so
> -can the kickstart file be created, and placed on the targeted system's HD.
yes, or you can access it over the network.
> -if the kickstart file can be placed on the targeted system's HD, where
> should it go?? (what dir should it be placed in...)
> -would the targeted kickstart file have the VNC 'hooks' in the kickstart
> file
> -would this allow us to use VNC to then graphically install FC3 on the
> targeted system
I'm not sure you mean "kickstart" the same way that I interpret it.
A kickstart installation is fully automated, reading all instructions from an 
ASCII text file (the kickstart file). Do you want to do a manual installation 
or do you want it fully automatic?


> any help/ideas/opinions/comments would be helpful...
>
> we don't want to somehow screw this up!!
>
> -bruce
> bedouglas at earthlink.net

-- 
--
Stuart Sears RHCE RHCX RTFM
Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to
be appointed to do the work.