Remote Installation on blank comp without floppy/cd
 

Hi all,

I want to install Linux Operating System without inserting any floppy/CD in the client machine . Client machine will be in remote area. Can i do that and if yes; can anyone please give me some information/link on that. I hope it is somehow possible via some pxe/bootp bla bla bla....

Thanks in Advance.
Rajesh.

I have not particular HowTo, but a keyword: loadlin should enable you to run a linux kernel from a DOS/Windows system.

SuSE support database has a description for older versions of SuSE:

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2001/0...a_dosinst.html

But you would need a working DOS system with internet connection on the client.

Hi Rajesh,

Yes it can be done. Generally the idea is to put a kernel and ramdisk image on a tftp server. Boot the remote system from those tftp'd files, then ssh in and complete the setup. If the remote system doesn't support PXE (or even if it does) you can use grub to netboot the system.

You can get tftpboot grub images from http://i30www.ira.uka.de/~ud3/mkgrubdisk/ . These images get menu.lst by tftp, so you can adjust grub's startup commands from the tftpboot dir when it doesn't work first time ;-)