Surely this is possible without a doubt, but such a venture seems risky to say the least.

I'm curious if there are any brave souls (reading this, of course) who have ventured down this path with success?

The main reason I wish to 'convert' to LFS on my server is simple: new software and a speed increase. Not to mention the customizability.

But, I'm wondering if maybe the distro (and the software) that is currently installed is too old. RedHat 7.2.

I suppose the main issue is that I cannot simply reboot during the phase indicated within the LFS boot. Rebooting would result in an inaccessible server. I'd need to install SSH before reboot, then, pray that it all works.

I'm not asking a specific question, just merely requesting input from others on the concept.

Thanks.

I do it all the time (like when I setup the linuxfromscratch.org server). Just install openssl and openssh when you're still in chroot in chapter 6 and install whatever else you want, add a bootscript for sshd in chapter 7 and you should be all set.

I did my LFS originally over ssh with no problems. With only three total monitors and 9 computers, I do most of my tasks thru ssh on most of my machines.

I decided to go ahead with it. I should note (in case it is not obvious for the above) that the server is remote. I don't have direct access to it, thus I have no means of 'viewing' on-screen output.

Basically, it did not work. Why? I have no idea. All I know is I could not connect to the server via SSH after I performed "reboot" on the host install. So, that means the following could be a problem:

1) SSH didn't start
2) Ethernet wasn't brought up
3) Kernel wasn't found
4) Several million other possibilities...

Manually, I requested that the server been rebooted into the host install. This was accomplished.

Once I got into the server, I viewed the var/log directory of the LFS install. Nothing. No kern.log, no log messages that reveal any clues as to why the booting of the LFS install fails.

So, what does that mean? It means something is happening before sysklog can be started. How do I find out? Is there some way of running a Simulated boot? Is there any way to have LILO (somehow?) log what happens?

I don't know what to do.