FTP/HTTP vs NFS install

[Jason Edgecombe]

leilei175 at gmail.com wrote:
> Thanks for your help, Cris
>
> Yes, I do use "linux askmethod" on the command line.
> So if I insert a CD to boot the raw box, it is impossible to use
> remote http/ftp install trees?
> However I was able to use nfs in this situation. That's weird.
>
> I don't have PXE  in my environment
> If I would like to boot a raw box and ask it to use kickstart file and
> install tree on a http server
> what should I do, Could you give me some suggestions?
>
> I havn't used the netboot.iso image you mentioned.
> Is it possible to create a bootable CD with netboot.iso?
>   

I'm not sure if this will work for RHEL4, but for RHEL5, I can just 
append my ks=http://www.example.com/kickstart.txt at the boot prompt.

Similarly, I burned a custom build CD and a USB key:
rough instructions for CD:
1. copy isolinux/vmlinux,  vmlinux/initrd, and isolinux.isolinux.bin 
from the first RHEL5 CD to a /tmp/src.
2. copy isolinux/isolinux.cfg to /tmp/src and customize it by adding 
your custom ks line and removing uneeded stuff
3. create /tmp/src/boot.msg and put some text to describe what to type
4. run mkbootcd

============mkbootcd==============
cd /tmp/src/
mkisofs -o ../boot.iso \
 -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat \
 -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
 ./
cd ..
================================

burn and test /tmp/boot.iso

to make a pen drive, run "syslinux dev" on a fat32-formatted thumb drive 
( substitute dev for the block device of the thumb drive), copy 
/tmp/src/* to the drive and rename isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg

I use this method to build RHEL5 boxes which fetch the kickstart file 
over http and install from NFS

Jason