Auto Install for Mandrake Linux | ||
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The following is a simple example, you should adjust it as required for your environment and security requirements. After setting up a NFS Server, you will be able to use the 'network' install for Manual Installations and for NFS Automated / Replay installs.
Step 1
On the designated server machine, make sure that NFS is installed and running. For this example, my server's name is 'fileserver.eastcott.net'.
Step 2 As root on 'fileserver':
a) Create a directory using: mkdir /nfscd
b) change the permissions to 0755 using: chmod 755 /nfscd
c) change ownership of the directory to a regular user <user.group> using:
chown user.group /nfscd
Step 3 As the regular user who owns /nfscd:
(Assumes that the CD-ROM is mounted as /mnt/cdrom.)
a) Insert the MDK Install CD (1 of ...) into your CD-ROM, and mount it.
b) copy the CD-ROMs contents to the new directory using: cp -a /mnt/cdrom /nfscd
c) Umount the first disk, then insert and mount the second CD.
d) again, copy the files using: cp -a /mnt/cdrom /nfscd
e) Unmount and remove the CD.
f) Repeat if you have more disks.
Step 4
Rename the directory /nfscd/cdrom to /nfscd/cdrom9.0 using:
mv /nfscd/cdrom /nfscd/cdrom9.0
Step 5 As root:
a) Modify your /etc/exports files to contain the the line:
/nfscd/cdrom9.0 *.eastcott.net(ro,root_squash)
NOTE: if you the NFS server can not do a reverse name look up because the DNS server does not have an IP to name entry for your computer, then you may have to change the above line to use the IP form:
/nfscd/cdrom9.0 192.168.5.0/255.255.255.0(ro,root_squash)
b) Then update the NFS exports using: exportfs -r
Step 6 On a different computer:
a) Test that the NFS volume can be mounted (probably as root) using:
mount -t nfs fileserver:/nfscd/cdrom9.0 /mnt/nfs
b) Un-mount it.
Step 7 Create a test auto install disk
Adjust the syslinux.cfg file for your network, adjust the auto_inst.cfg file to your requirements. Then install the disk in a target computer, re-boot it and verify that you can do an install.
Problems that you may encounter include:
a) The install fails with an error message indicating it can not find the install files. This may be caused because the 'syslinux.cfg' file directory parameter is incorrect, you forgot to re-export the NFS volumes after changing the /etc/exports file.
b) The install fails with an indication similar to Permission Denied. This is usually because the directory and file permissions are set incorrectly on NFS server. All directories in the export volume should have the permissions of a least 555, and all the distribution files should have permissions of at least 444.
c) The install fails with an error similar to unable to execute install2. This is again a permissions problem.
d) The install completes, but not all the packages were installed. This may be because you did not copy all the required CDs and retain the required directory heirarchy.
The last three problems are usually solved by deleting the /nfscd directory and its contents, then repeating steps 2 through 5 again.
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