On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 08:32 -0400, Ken Schneider wrote:

On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 11:32 +0100, Stephen Carter wrote:

...

Actually I became a little more interested in this so I did a quick search, and found this article on Novell's webiste about headless installs using VNC. The crux is you need to have a network environment setup in the remote location to support this type of installation which needs a copy of the installation source, a tftp and dhcp server, and the server itself prepared for PXE boot. Sorry if it's already been mentioned, I only joined the list recently.

http://support.novell.com/techcenter/articles/tp10009.html

This is great but still requires some user interaction. An IP based KVM would eliminate user intervention and allow bios access during the boot process.

Also check chapter 3.3.1 and 3.3.2 in the 9.3 adminguide. There are instructions for using VNC in the install process, but this still requires some human intervention at the server being installed. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998 "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge

On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 18:20 -0700, Scott Leighton wrote:

Thanks to Ken, Stephen and Jerry for the useful pointers.

I'm probably worrying needlessly here and the install will go fine using VNC. The only humans on the other side will be IT guys that are 100% windows oriented, but I should be able to get them to mount the DVD and type the neccessary commands to get me going with a VNC install.

I was hoping not to have to involve them, don't want to give them any reasons to dislike Linux and certainly don't want my incompetence on display if there are problems with the install <g>.

It's a few months away, but I'll report back on my success or failure.

Thanks again!

Scott

There should not be any reason to hate linux but admire it for being able to install remotely. Not sure if MS can do that. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998 "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge

On 5/28/05, John Scott wrote:

On 5/25/05, Ken Schneider wrote:

...

On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 18:20 -0700, Scott Leighton wrote:

...

Thanks to Ken, Stephen and Jerry for the useful pointers.

I'm probably worrying needlessly here and the install will go fine using VNC. The only humans on the other side will be IT guys that are 100% windows oriented, but I should be able to get them to mount the DVD and type the neccessary commands to get me going with a VNC install.

I was hoping not to have to involve them, don't want to give them any reasons to dislike Linux and certainly don't want my incompetence on display if there are problems with the install <g>.

It's a few months away, but I'll report back on my success or failure.

Thanks again!

Scott

There should not be any reason to hate linux but admire it for being able to install remotely. Not sure if MS can do that.

-- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998

"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge

Have you though about doing a serial port connection form another box (we'll call it server1) that is up and running , via null modem cable, and redirecting the box to be installed (we'll call it server2) output to server1 via the null modem cable?

Below are a few links that might get you started.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/index.html http://www.cpqlinux.com/serialinstall.html http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~dranch/LINUX/TrinityOS/cHTML/TrinityOS-c-55.ht... http://www.beowulf.org/archive/2002-July/007641.html

John

I forgot to state that you could then ssh to server1 and control server2 over the null modem connection. In effect server1 has become a cheap console server. This still requires some human interaction at the other end. Someone will need to either type in some commands or you'll need to create a custom boot disk with the correct arguments that this person boots the server from. Not quite the same as getting true bios level control, but it will let you install. John