Re: Network install to hard drive

> I'm still trying to figure this out myself; Einar's instructions were
> very useful, but I'm noticing a problem that you might encounter
> yourself once you get that far.
>
> Unless I'm doing something else wrong, Einar's procedure might actually
> require a custom kernel; my test system, at least, is having a hard time
>  mounting a local hard drive partition to copy the final images to (see
> below).
>
Your kernel doesn't need to mount or even recognize the filesystems,
despite the fact that standard PXES kernel will recognize vfat, ext2 and
squashfs.
Bootloader should be able to read it.
You can copy filesystem images made in another box.
> Overall, however, I think that that method is a good one; I don't know
> how others prefer to do it, but when I doctored my install image, I
> edited /bin/startsession to add an 'install)' section in the 'case
> "$SESSION" in' block.  This 'install)' section executes my own custom
> install scripts, and this can be chosen from the PXELINUX boot menu
> (e.g., enter '1 SESSION_DEFAULT=install' at boot time.  Kind of a cheezy
>  hack, but I'm new to this too. :)  ).
>
> So what I do there is call a script that tries to partition, format, and
>  mount the local hard drive as Einar suggested, and to do this I did
> have  to copy mkdosfs and fdisk into the initrd on the server like he
> did, as  well as bootloader utilities (I'm using syslinux, just because
> I'm more  used to it than I am to grub).  Once this is working, it
> should be as  simple as copying the intended images to the new partition
> and running  the bootloader configuration tool.
>
> So this might be a good time to ask everyone else:  Is a special kernel
> required, or should certain utilities be included in the install
> environment, to mount a DOS (or even ext2 if one's using grub) partition
>  from within PXES so the final image can be copied over?  Here's what
> I'm  seeing:
>
> # mount -t msdos /dev/discs/disc0/part1 /mnt/hd
> mount: Mounting /dev/discs/disc0/part1 on /mnt/hd failed: No such device
and dd if=/dev/discs/disc0/part1 of=/dev/null count=1024 ?
>
> I'm pretty sure I've got the device files right, since 'fdisk -l
> /dev/discs/disc0/disc' shows the same filename for the partition.  Does
> anyone know if this is normal behavior, and whether PXES requires any
> special configuration to be able to mount local hard drive partitions?
>
> Sorry I don't have any better information, Hillel, though I'm glad to
> offer more details up to the point where I'm having these problems, if
> that helps at all.  Anybody else have any thoughts?
>
> -Phil Regier
> [email protected]
>
> Hillel Seltzer wrote:
>> Hello Everyone,
>>
>> I am a complete pxes newbie, and I think what I am looking
>> for is a little more difficult than your basic installation.
>>
>> I want to set up a PXES session to boot from the network
>> and then download the actual PXES image and kernel to
>> the client's hard drive so that the client will then boot
>> from the hard drive.
>>
>> I saw a message in the archives from Eliassen Einar who has
>> already done this, but the email address was obscured in the
>> sourceforge viewing page.  Can you provide more details?
>> Any other opinions on a better way to accomplish the same thing? Email
>> me directly at [email protected] if you do not want
>> to discuss in too great detail on list.
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>> ---Hillel
>>
>>
>>
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