LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Glen Turner <glen.turner@aarnet.edu.au>
  To  : Michael Davies <michaeld@senet.com.au>
  Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 00:53:09 +1030 (CST)

Re: install w/out floppy/CDROM

On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, Michael Davies wrote:
> I have a RedHat 5.2 box that needs^h^h^h^hcould do with an upgrade.  It
> doesn't have a floppy or CD-ROM, but sits on the same ethernet run as
> another RedHat box with 6.1 on it - this one has CD and floppy.
> 
> I'd like to do a clean install of 6.1 on the first box.  Possible?  If
> so, how?


It's an unusual circumstance, thus the lack of documentation.  Can
you boot off anything other than the hard disk?

The CD-ROM is easy -- you can export it using NFS, FTP or HTTP. I'd
suggest using HTTP -- use the alias(?) command in /etc/httpd/access.conf
to export /mnt/cdrom as http://.../cdrom/.

If possible, I'd pinch the floppy drive from the other machine and
boot the network install disk.

Otherwise... 

TACTIC 1

Pinch one cylinder of your swap space, below the 1023th cylinder (ie: mess
about with /etc/fstab, boot into single user mode, use fdisk, reformat the
swap, reboot). Make a network install image of that size on your 6.1
machine.  FTP it to the target machine and use dd to write it to the
cylinder. Change lilo and boot off that cylinder.

You might actually be able to use the floppy network install image
as it is -- I imagine your cylinder is bigger than 1440K.

TACTIC 2

The upgrade program basically copies down all the rpms you have
installed and runs "rpm -U".

The newer version of rpm on 6.1 has a "-F" option that will
not upgrade the RPM if it has not been installed.

Backup the machine.  Boot into single user mode.

Download the 6.1 SRPM and build it -- statically link it and
put it in your home directory.  Now run

  ~/rpm -Fvh http://.../cdrom/*.rpm

As it is statically linked you should be OK when the C libraries
are upgraded.  Hopefully nothing too bad will crash -- we are
in single user mode.  Boot into stand alone mode.  Check things
out.  Boot into 3.  I'd re-run Xconfigurator and the sound
config packages.  Boot into 5.

TACTIC 3

Recompile the 6.1 installer against the 5.2 libraries.
Statically, and in your home directory.
Run the 6.1 installer.

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