Need to install FC6 on Local network via PXE HELP

[andytof47]

Hi I am wondering if someone can help.....

I have a small scenario playing out in my office.

We have a small system that only has a cdrom and no internet access and I want to install FC6 on this system so that we can use it as a router and internal server.

It also has a NIC that netboot's without a problem.

I have a ubuntu server that serves up our feisty installs but as far as FC6 I haven't got this happening yet so i'm asking.

With fesity net installs we have had to create a local repository by mirroring our ISP's repo this is about 20GB and as you could imagine we don't want to be doing this for every different distro..

I have a DVD of FC6 and I am wondering if I can create a folder server it up on Apache and sort of just have a standard DVD install ..... just over a network

If so ----- what needs to be modified on the FC6 netboot image? anyone got an example of the syntax i need?


Cheers

[andytof47]

OK I have successfully installed Ubuntu Feisty over my network and the environment needs only one last ingredient for PXE install of FC6 (this was my original goal)

I can download the netboot image for FC6 from the internet but I'm not sure if using this will make the installer look for files on the internet instead of the FC6 image

Any help with this??

[DRE.ORGY.NET]

As far as installing any linux OS over PXE the procedure is the same.

1. Setup a DHCP & TFTP server - Make sure that the Next server dhcp option has the IP address of your TFTP server

2. Using etherboot or pxelinux create a pxelinux.0 directory & associated config / boot image file.
- There are plenty of guides on how to PXE boot a Linux environment you can get some tips from
- Ubuntu by default comes with a netboot image on the dvd / cd which you can use. I dont believe Fedora core does the same so you can either google for one or create your own.

3. Create a local repository of the packages using either a HTTP (apache) or NFS
- By looking at other online FC6 mirrors I think you should be able to copy the entire contents of a FC6 dvd to a folder on a PC with a web server (you may just need the Fedora directory) and that should work.

4. Boot your PXE enabled client and it should do the following
- Get an IP address --> This means your DHCP server is configured correctly
- Download a boot image via TFTP --> This means you've configured DHCP correctly to talk to your TFTP server and you have PXE linux serving an image
- Launch the installer of the chosen distro --> This means you've managed to get a boot image that will correctly boot off the network
- Point your installer to your mirror location --> This means that your Fedora core mirror is working

[andytof47]

ok thanks,
Do you know any guides - I'm asking because I've been googling for hours ------ I notice that downloading a netboot image for Ubuntu is different to using the one that is on the cd/dvd

The CD/DVD version installs without need for creating a local mirror -- thats my aim for FC6 aswell

So if there is any help for creating customized FC6 netboot images I would really appreciate that or a detailed howto or just a link to a FC6 netboot that just looks for the files that are on the DVD


Many thanks again ---

[andytof47]

bump!

Please

[boethius]

So if there is any help for creating customized FC6 netboot images I would really appreciate that or a detailed howto or just a link to a FC6 netboot that just looks for the files that are on the DVD

I don't see any reason you need anything other than the DVD. Any Kickstart process will just be looking for the root filesystem structure that comes off a DVD anyway; you'll see the eula.txt, Fedora, images, isolinux etc directories off of this root DVD folder.

Then this line in your Kickstart will reference this root directory that's accessible from your web server:

url --url http://hostname.domain.com/fc6

Say you have an alias to /fc6 in your web server conf. Or perhaps a /mirrors/fc6 directory kind of deal where you host multiple OS/distribution images.

To toot my own horn here I've developed an open source solution called Fastdeploy which puts a layer over the top of a lot of these processes. It's a bit of a bear to setup initially but if you find yourself doing a lot of Kickstart and other OS deployments it might be a helpful tool.

[andytof47]

Hey guess what... It all worked....

So thanks for your help all I really apreciate it