[CentOS] Network installation from CD

[Dag Wieers]

On Sun, 28 Sep 2008, Robert Moskowitz wrote:

> Dag Wieers wrote:
>>  In a corporate environment we are not allowed to use DHCP/PXE for doing
>>  network installations. This means we have to look for other solutions. Our
>>  solution is to use an ISO image (mounted via a KVM solution) to kick off
>>  the network installation.
>>
>>  A big problem currently is that the order of the network interfaces is
>>  arbitrary (depends on the order of the drivers loaded) and is not
>>  influence by the order of the PCI slots. So in our case we have a bunch of
>>  e1000, bnx2 and tg3 in systems we have to install.
>
> I ASSuME that different interfaces are plugged into different switch ports on 
> a switch supporting VLANs? Perhaps the same switch for all ports.
>
> Can you set up those ports, so that for install, they are all on the same 
> VLAN? So it would not matter which interface is used for the install, the IP 
> address you assign it will work on it?

Robert,

The problem here is that multiple teams are involved and every additional 
step does not only make the whole installation harder, it makes it more 
error-prone.

The 2 datacenters are 400km away, the teams speak another language.

And frankly, if we specify the MAC address and we can have a proper 
network going to download the kickstart file. We should be able to do the 
same for the second phase (downloading the media/packages).

Adding a step where room-management is going to repatch the system is 
highly undesirable, because it should be avoidable.

-- 
--   dag wieers,  dag at centos.org,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]