Setting up a Network Install Server

luke802 · #1 30th October 2007, 08:26 PM

Hello,

We have quite a few PC's in our office which we would like to upgrade to Fedora 7 from core 5. Unfortuantely, we do not have DVD drives in most of them and a network install over the internet which we tried on a couple machines takes too long.

What files do we need to download from a Fedora Mirror and put on our own HTTP server on the lan to do a network install from the local machine?

Generally we will be using the "Office" and "Web Server" group of packages.

Any help would be appreciatted.

markkuk · #2 30th October 2007, 11:37 PM

You need the complete releases/7/Fedora/<arch>/os directory, or the contents of the installation DVD.

luke802 · #3 31st October 2007, 04:21 AM

Thanks Muchly!

I assume I just need to mount the ISO image and then copy the directory structure and files to my web server?

markkuk · #4 31st October 2007, 12:27 PM

Yes, at least that's the way it worked with FC6. I haven't tested network install with F7.

luke802 · #5 31st October 2007, 05:01 PM

thanks Markkuk. I will try this and respond if I need more help.

many thanks.

luke802 · #6 9th November 2007, 08:50 PM

I tried this! Unfortunately without any luck. It can fine the stage 2 file but then it hangs trying to retrieve other packages.

Any other ideas?

RHamel · #7 9th November 2007, 09:48 PM

I've not burned the full distro since Fedora 3. What I do is do a full download in this case the DVD iso and the emergency disk, and put it on a machine that I start an NFS server on. Create an NFS share for the directory it's in. Burn the emergency disk, and boot with that on the machine I want to install Fedora on. Follow the on screen instructions.

It's explained here.

RHamel · #8 9th November 2007, 10:00 PM

Did you change the file permissions?

skellert · #9 9th November 2007, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RHamel

I've not burned the full distro since Fedora 3. What I do is do a full download in this case the DVD iso and the emergency disk, and put it on a machine that I start an NFS server on. Create an NFS share for the directory it's in. Burn the emergency disk, and boot with that on the machine I want to install Fedora on. Follow the on screen instructions.

It's explained here.

I've also been using NFS since FC4, but something has changed with F8 and its bombing out now. I started an alternate thread here http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=171238 but am not making progress.... I'm wondering whether anybody else has done an F8 PXE / NFS installation successfully and if so, what's it about my setup or hardware that allows F7 and earlier PXE / NFS installations to work but not F8??

RHamel · #10 9th November 2007, 10:56 PM

I was just looking at the other thread. I've looked at PXE, but have never tried it. Since I've never had the opportunity to do this in an office environment with multiple installs. But, what firewall settings, if any are on your NFS server?