Insall ubuntu on network hard drive

iclou · 12-04-2007, 12:44 AM

Hi all

I have the following current situation:
a) My notebook has dual-boot (GRUB) with WinXP and SUSE installed on the internal hard disk.
b) The BIOS supports PXE LAN as boot device
c) At NIC eth0 I have a new network hard drive (iomega)

I would like to install Ubuntu on the network hard drive and allowing it to boot through PXE LAN.

Does anybody know how I can achieve that? Especially how can I install Ubuntu on a mounted drive (the network hard drive)?

--
Any help is very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike

Simon Bridge · 12-04-2007, 01:31 AM

Can you boot from the network drive (i.e. you have a nic that is network-boot capable) - this would end up using your laptop as a thin client?

Otherwise you would want to put the /boot partition on the local drive and mount everything else from the network. I think, nfs-mount?

michaelk · 12-04-2007, 01:52 AM

In order to boot using PXE you need a server configured for DHCP, TFTP. So having just a network storage device will not work.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DisklessUbuntuHowto

iclou · 12-04-2007, 02:48 AM

[QUOTE=michaelk;2979450]In order to boot using PXE you need a server configured for DHCP, TFTP. So having just a network storage device will not work.
QUOTE]

Thanks for your fast answer!
Does that mean beside my notebook I need another server where Ubuntu is being loaded?
There is no way just installing Ubuntu on the network hard drive and boot from there - or from GRUB?

--
Thanks very much for your help.
Regards,
Mike

iclou · 12-04-2007, 02:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Bridge

Can you boot from the network drive (i.e. you have a nic that is network-boot capable) - this would end up using your laptop as a thin client?

Otherwise you would want to put the /boot partition on the local drive and mount everything else from the network. I think, nfs-mount?

How can I install Ubuntu on the network hard drive? By running the install program, I only see the WinXP and SUSE partition?
How can I expose the network hard drive as a partition?

--
Thanks for your help.
Mike

michaelk · 12-04-2007, 02:38 PM

Yes, if you want to boot a computer using PXE you will need another computer that stores a linux kernel. No, you can not load linux on a network storage device like a regular hard drive attached to the computer.