On Mon, 2003-11-17 at 13:02, Bret Hughes wrote: > On Mon, 2003-11-17 at 10:48, Matthew Saltzman wrote: > > On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, Jesse Keating wrote: > > > > > On Sunday 16 November 2003 14:08, Matthew Saltzman wrote: > > > > Is it possible to use the VNC install option to do a completely headless > > > > install? How does one pass the vnc-related boot options to the > > > > bootloader if one doesn't have a keyboard? Is kickstart the only way? > > > > > > Carefully crafted boot CD that has all the VNC info set in the default > > > image that you have set to timeout to. You can mess with the boot.iso > > > provided and set up the options you want to use in isolinux config files. > > > > I was hoping it would be easier than that. Can it be done with a floppy > > and a network or hard disk install? > > > > not sure about the remote part but I was able to install fedora by > booting to the iso installation kernel an initrd provided in the > installation tree. I am dinking now. > ok I got this to work but sort of involved. The box I did this from has no external media at all so ther are a few steps a normal person might not have to do. These steps involve three machines, the box to be installed/upgraded (test1), the nfs server (hughesfw) and the machine to display the installation on (bretsony) the boot loader I use is lilo so you may have to translate this to grub if that is what you use. I have all the isos in an nfs exported directory on a server with the ip 10.23.0.254. The dir is /files/yarrow-binary-i386-iso The secret to the headless is to create a kickstart file with enough information to get connected to the network and anaconda for a nfs install. I did this by putting a ks.cfg file in the same dir as the isos. [bhughes@hughesfw yarrow-binary-i386-iso]$ ll total 1928980 -rw-rw-r-- 1 bhughes bhughes 140 Nov 17 13:37 ks.cfg -rw-rw-r-- 1 bhughes bhughes 575 Nov 6 12:19 MD5SUM -rw-rw-r-- 1 bhughes bhughes 660340736 Nov 7 04:47 yarrow-i386-disc1.iso -rw-rw-r-- 1 bhughes bhughes 667516928 Nov 7 04:47 yarrow-i386-disc2.iso -rw-rw-r-- 1 bhughes bhughes 645464064 Nov 7 04:47 yarrow-i386-disc3.iso the contents of the ks.cfg file is: #**************************** ks.cfg ********************** # this is the kickstart file used to perform a remote upgrade to fedora # on a headless box lang en_US network --bootproto dhcp #set this to the ipaddress of your nfs server that contains the isos nfs --server 10.23.0.254 --dir /files/yarrow-binary-i386-iso #set this to the driver for your NIC device ethernet 8139too keyboard "us" # *************** end of ks.cfg ******************** Copy the vmlinuz and initrd.img from the isolinux dir on the first iso to the install box /boot/instvmlinuz and /boot/instinitrd.img respectively. [root@test1 boot]# ls inst* instinitrd.img instvmlinuz Next I created a lilo.conf that would pass the necessary options to the kernel. the stanza I added looks like this: image=/boot/instvmlinuz label=reminstall read-only initrd=/boot/instinitrd.img append="ks=nfs:10.23.0.254:/files/yarrow-binary-i386-iso/ks.cfg vnc vncconnect=10.23.0.50" 10.23.0.254 is the nfs server. 10.23.0.50 is my laptop that I wanted to display the install on. on the install box run lilo -v if everything is ok, on the install box run lilo -R reminstall to tell lilo to boot the reminstall config on the next boot only on my laptop (10.23.0.50) I ran vncviewer -listen [bhughes@bretsony install]$ vncviewer -listen vncviewer -listen: Listening on port 5500 (flash port 5400) vncviewer -listen: Command line errors are not reported until a connection comes in. next I rebooted the install box and lo and behold I had a tightvnc window pop up on my laptop with the graphical install in it. I am sure this could be done via a hard disk install as well, I have just never done it that way HTH Bret
