Topic: sme server remote install (w/o boot floppy)?

[tape]

Hmm.. just thinking about, but haven´t found a way yet.

I have a rented server and this machine can be bootet  remotely in "normal mode" or into an "rescue mode". Then it starts with an initial ramdisk and a small linux including busybox tools.

Is there any way to start the bootstrap on sme server manually using this ramdisk maybe? I have read lots about remote installs w/o disk or psx/netboot on Debian and Gentoo, but afaik they do have spezial packages (stages) to do so. Haven´t found any information to do so on a RH. But umm.. i do have less experience on RH so i guess there is for sure more than one way as usual but haven´t seen it yet.

Could point me someone to the right direction?

best regards from South Germany
Anton

[TrevorB]

You should be able to use this trick.

http://nx.dyndns.info/sme/pxeboot/pxeboot.php

You should be able to bootstrap into the sme install OK, but this would require either exposing your tftp server to the internet (not on by default and I believe not secure) or having a copy of sme locally.

Good Luck

Trevor B
PS. It does work for 6.0.

[Anonymous]

You should be able to use this trick.

http://nx.dyndns.info/sme/pxeboot/pxeboot.php

You should be able to bootstrap into the sme install OK, but this would require either exposing your tftp server to the internet (not on by default and I believe not secure) or having a copy of sme locally.

Good Luck

Trevor B
PS. It does work for 6.0.

yup, it would work in a lokal network i guess. But in my case, i only can boot the server remotely and can not watch the installation local to install sme server as usual.

Through a webinterface at the providers web i can choose to boot the server into a so called "rescue mode". Wich is a simble ramdisk with busybox toolbox, so i also can mount the drives and i.e watch them for errors if needed.

Like in Debian, there should be an way to start the initial install using another OS/Linux. But of course i would prefer installing sme-server.

Afaik RH/sme server is using kickstart to manage the install process. I will try to find out more, maybe there is an wy to install kickstart into this ramdisk , start the install then and get all data from i.e. an ftp server.

anyway thanks for your help
and best regards
Anton

Anton

[TrevorB]

Through a webinterface at the providers web i can choose to boot the server into a so called "rescue mode". Wich is a simble ramdisk with busybox toolbox, so i also can mount the drives and i.e watch them for errors if needed.

Like in Debian, there should be an way to start the initial install using another OS/Linux. But of course i would prefer installing sme-server.

Afaik RH/sme server is using kickstart to manage the install process. I will try to find out more, maybe there is an wy to install kickstart into this ramdisk , start the install then and get all data from i.e. an ftp server.

Anton

Can you get it to boot into the install kernel & ramdisk in the /images/pxeboot directory of the e-smith CDROM? Once that starts you can select the source of the install.

Also, if you can get a DOS prompt on the remote device, syslinux works the same as pxelinux and you can use it to load the install kernel & initrd. I have used this from a USB stick before.

Trevor B