On Thursday 13 October 2005 22:14, Pierre Patino wrote:
Eric Whiting wrote:
Checkout information on pxeboot/dhcp/tftp/systemimager. I have racks of boxes that boot headless and install an image automatically from a linux image server... Actually to reinstall I simply dd a little /dev/zero to /dev/sda and power the box off/on and it re-installs..
eric
Pierre Patino wrote:
Hello everyone I'm looking into the possibility of building a headless amd64 box. Said box would have its own hard disk and communicate to the outside world via Ethernet. Question: How would I configure it initially? Could it boot off a windows box the first time and then suck up an entire image from the windows system, format the hard drive and put the image there for future booting? Has anybody attempted this? Cheers
Thanks for the reading list. I've got my evenings filled up now. I knew these things are not uncommon. However the requirement is that the image server be Windows XP Pro. Anyone been there?
No, but last time I checked DHCP server and TFTP server were only included in the "WindowsXX Server" editions. So you probably have to hunt for a freeware DHCP server and TFTP server. If you have a spare computer, then install Suse on it at and run the DHCP and TFTP stuff on it. Or maybe just from a SuSE inside vmware. One word of warning: If you install SuSE on a amd64 box, the the pxeboot file is amd64 too. You have to hunt for the right 32-bit pxeboot file on the installation disks. Maybe a document I wrote a few months ago while installing Suse on a soekris net 4801 will help you: http://i1.dk/misc/soekris_net4801_suse_linux_9_3.html If you are only installing one 1 machine then you should consider biting the bullet and attach a cd-rom drive temporarily while installing. It is much faster if it only 1 machine and you don't have to do it all the time.