Remote Install

[Andrew Kelly <akelly transparency org>]

Hi everybody,

although I came close, I couldn't seem to find the answer to
my question in the archives. If it's there and I've just missed
it, please forgive me.

In a nutshell, my question is simply, "Without having physical
access to a machine, how can I install RH over an existing 
SuSE installation?"

I have root access to 2 servers in a farm. I can reach them
via ssh and can make a serial connection to them through a
console
server in the farm.

I have no physical access to the machines, and having personnel
at the farm insert a diskette or CD is not a possibility.

PXE is a possibility in theory, but I don't see how I can
actually use it. I cannot interact with the machines' BIOS,
so if the PXE is not active I cannot make it so.
I assume however that it is already active, because the
farm offers the possibility of a system recovery via web
interface.
Through the web I can send a request to reset the machine to
it's condition at the time of delivery. I'm assuming that
this sets a flag at the DHCP server to shoot am image back
into the machine and/or via PXE do a default unattended install.

Since a PXE/NFS/Kickstart install depends on me having control
of the DHCP server from which the client gets its goodies, I
don't see how I can use this option. 

Is there not a possibility to do an install from the HD?
I mean, I can boot from Diskette or CD and do a network 
install from a NFS/FTP/HTTP server, right? I can even use
a KS script to do most of the work, right?

For an install I have everything I need loaded and running 
in RAM and it's fairly unimportant at the time of install
where that stuff came from, isn't it?

Shouldn't I be able to boot from HD, load an initrd and kernel
from HD, get network info from a DHCP server, mount an
NFS filesystem, fire up anaconda bla bla bla, ... if all
this is running in RAM and an install is about to roll, does
it really matter if I got there via mounted floppy, mounted 
CD, PXE, magic wand, whatever?
If I understand correctly that an install is running in a
chroot'ed ramdisk, shouldn't it be possible to pull your
bootloader, ramdisk image, kernel, etc. from the HD?

If anybody can point me in the right direction I'd really
appreciate it. I have no use for a SuSE box with huge single
/ partition.

TIA,

Andy