> that depends on the BIOS of your system; it's not an issue that CentOS > can (easily) deal with. some Dell servers have a utility that you can > use to change BIOS settings from within the OS, but i can't speak to how > well it works. > > here's how i solved a related problem when setting up a lab of machines > that would be PXE-booting to reinstall themselves without an admin at > the console: > > 1) in the BIOS, set the boot order to PXE,HD (you can put CD/floppy/USB > before HD if you want, but PXE must be first) > 2) set up your TFTP server such that the default boot target boots from > the system's hard drive (use the "LOCALBOOT" option as described here: > http://syslinux.zytor.com/faq.php) > 3) created another PXELINUX configuration that performs a network boot > and give it a name that corresponds to either the machine's MAC address > or the machine's IP address (as described here: > http://syslinux.zytor.com/pxe.php#config) > 4) if you're using the PXE boot to kickstart the machine, add a line to > the %post section of your ks.cfg that will ssh to the TFTP server and > move aside the PXELINUX config file with the machine's MAC/IP address > (you can make this process as simple or complicated as you need) > > if you follow these steps, then the machine will PXE-boot when the > special config file is in place, kickstart itself, and then move the > special config file aside; when it next boots, the TFTP server won't > find the special config file, so it'll use the default config file, > which tells the machine to boot from the local hard drive. > > does this make sense? > > -steve > > p.s. there are other ways of having the machine "phone home" to the tftp > server besides using ssh; one of my colleagues did it with a little php > script. alternately, you could have a script running on the TFTP server > that watches the logfile for evidence of successful PXE boots and uses > that information to move aside the special config file. thanks - these are Dells yes so i'll give this a shot cheers