Bug#249223: debian installer cd should offer a netboot install option for remote machines
Adam Lydick wrote:
> Package: installation-reports
>
> This is a general wishlist item for the installer, but I wasn't sure
> what package to file this against. Please reroute it as needed.
>
> Most of the laptops that I install debian on are single-spindle
> sub-notebooks. This generally requires netbooting, as not all of them
> support boot off various USB devices (memory stick, external cdrom,
> etc). It would be very helpful to have an installation method that did
> nothing but init the network hardware and start up a bootp server to
> serve itself over the network. Then I could very easily kick off the
> installation via PXE from any desktop/two-spindle laptop that I had
> available by plugging them both into a hub.
This would also be interesting for other hardware without any
convenient removable media, which is quite common for e.g. some
arm/mips systems.
> Desired behavior:
> * Get one desktop machine. Insert debian install CD.
> * Reboot desktop. Select "install-server" installation method.
This reqires a Debian live CD system, which we don't have yet.
> * Desktop boots linux and starts up a dhcp + tftp server.
Without further network configuration this would mean an isolated
network, so the client still has to install from a stack of removable
media.
> * Get target machine. Boot off PXE.
> * Desktop assigns IP to target, sends the kernel and ramdisk via tftp.
> * Install normally on the target machine.
A fully networked install from a (local) http server would by nicer.
Feeding a dozen or so CDs to the client isn't fun.
Thiemo
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