install with no physical access?

[David Timms]

Tom Horsley wrote:
> I've found it very convenient to install fedora on systems which have an
> existing grub already installed by copying the vmlinuz and initrd.img
> files to /boot and making an "Install Fedora" grub entry pointing at them
I guess you mean the /images/pxeboot vm.. and in..
Set the grub default to be the install kernel.

> (I can then tell the installer to do a hard disk install pointing to
> the DVD iso image on a local disk).
Make sure the disk is not a lvm volume {and maybe no mdraid either}. 
Write down the partition name {/dev/sda5} and the path within that 
folder - easiest is for the iso to be at the root of the chosen 
partition's filesystem.
Actually, you want info on all the existing partitions, so you can 
decide what goes where.

> Now I want to go one step farther - do the same thing over a VNC connection
> when I have absolutely no physical access to the machine I want to install on.
In grub, on the kernel line append vnc.

> I see some stuff in the installation guide about running installer over VNC,
> but it is talking about typing things in to the console. 
Well you can pass the parameter as shown above; this gets passed to the 
installer, along with any other values.

The easiest way for me to test was with vmware server - although the 
other virtualization technologies should provide the same easy test 
capability.

 > Is it possible to
> put enough kernel options in the grub entry to define the network and
> tell it to speak VNC? (And if so, what the heck happens after it does the
> first boot?
Access via ssh via root and the pass chosen in the installer.

> Is it still talking VNC after that?).
No.

As Tom Spec mentions, the kickstart is a nice repeatable way of doing it.

DaveT.