[plug] Helpers wanted - Netbooting Installations

[raven at themaw.net]

On Wed, 26 May 2004, Bernard Blackham wrote:

> On Wed, May 26, 2004 at 01:59:07PM +0800, Ian Kent wrote:
> > > I'm after people who have had some experience in getting their
> > > favourite (or least favourite :) distribution to install through
> > > netbooting. Debian I can do; the others are Fedora, SuSE, Mandrake
> > > and Gentoo. If you've done it before and willing to help do it
> > > again, could you please let me know.
> > 
> > You don't mean booting from LAN card PROM do you?
> 
> Well, that's what I'm emulating, without actually having to burn it
> to a PROM.
> 
> > > As part of the Installfest preparations, I've been looking at
> > > setting up a netboot installation setup where:
> > > 
> > >  1. you drop a floppy/CD-ROM into a machine
> > 
> > Done this for RH 7.1 and 7.3.
> 
> Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. This floppy/CD-ROM is a generic boot
> image that only has a bunch of network drivers that GRUB uses to
> netboot. It is the equivalent of the boot PROM on a network card,
> but for all the supported network cards and not burned into the
> card. It's not tied to any particular distribution.
> 
> > Do you want a canned 15-20 minute LAN based install as well. If this will 
> > mean decisions regarding disk partitions, net config etc. for the 
> > customisation scripting.
> 
> If you're willing to set it up, we can provide the option in the
> installation menu (eg, the choice between a normal RH/Fedora install
> and a preconfigured kickstart installation).
> 
> > >  2. It boots to a GRUB menu that asks you to select your network
> > >     card/driver (one of GRUB's drivers)
> > 
> > Mmm ... have to think about it.
> 
> These bits (1)-(4) I've all taken care of. The distribution-specific
> stuff starts from (5).
> 
> Tell me if I'm still not making any sense :)

Think I've got it.

A kickstart install my be faster than a normal install with the install 
rpms on the network. I was able to do a full install in just over 
eight minutes with 7.1 and 7.3. 

We would need to agree on the setup.
Partitions, DHCP?? or what net params, etc.

What do you think?

Ian