Topic: Network Installation...

[Colin Mattoon]

Hi:

I know this is not officially supported, but I'm experimenting, and a forum search didn't get me an answer...Has anyone here discovered how to perform a network installation of e-smith? Specifically, with ISA NICs? It wouldn't be a useful feature for the target market, but it would be handy for experimental deployment, and I wouldn't have to leave cdroms in these thrashers any longer.

Thanks,

Colin

[Robert]

Colin Mattoon wrote:
>
> Hi:
>
> I know this is not officially supported, but I'm
> experimenting, and a forum search didn't get me an
> answer...Has anyone here discovered how to perform a network
> installation of e-smith? Specifically, with ISA NICs? It
> wouldn't be a useful feature for the target market, but it
> would be handy for experimental deployment, and I wouldn't
> have to leave cdroms in these thrashers any longer.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Colin
You should use the bootnet image that's on the cd-rom. The installation uses kickstart and the only supported network installation with kickstart is through nfs. So if you've got a unix system with a cd-rom player on your network you could export the cd-rom as an nfs volume with the parameters that are in the kickstart file on the bootnet floppy (or, the other way around, adjust the kickstart file to your nfs parameters). Alternatively, you can run an ftp or web server on any computer on your network and serve the cd-rom through that. In that case you cannot use kickstart, so you have to delete the reference to it in syslinux.cfg on your bootnet floppy (the part that reads: ks=floppy:install.cfg). This way you'll get a standard RedHat network installation and you can choose your installation media and specify your NIC (many ISA NICs supported). Before doing this you should print the kickstart file that's on the floppy you created (install.cfg) or on the cd-rom and simply do manually what kickstart would have done automatically. You can do the post-install after rebooting. After doing the post-install and rebooting again, you'll boot into e-smith. First enter a root password, start configuration and when you're asked to configure your NICs, go to Alt-F2, log in as root w/ your new password and execute the commands
/sbin/e-smith/config set EthernetDriver1
e.g. /sbin/e-smith/config set EthernetDriver1 3c509
Set EthernetDriver2 as well. Then do /sbin/e-smith/signal-event console-save
Don't bother setting io and IRQ. System will work them out by itself. Now go back to Alt-F1 and configuring your system (OK, cancel first if you're still on the page for configuring your NICs, or your new drivers will not show). Good luck.

[Colin Mattoon]

Thanks. I had forgotten about the kickstart file. This should work fine.

Later,

Colin