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Network install Mandriva 2006


ianw1974
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OK, this is the scenario.

 

I have a PC at home, which only has a CD-ROM and CD-Writer drive. I downloaded Mandriva 2006 previously for all my other machines, which have DVD drives. Therefore, I just downloaded the DVD.

 

Obviously I cannot read this in my machine that just had CD drives, so I figured a network install would be best here.

 

One of my machines is running Mandriva 2006 with proftpd, so I figure I could use this, but I'm a little lost at present on what I'd need to copy and where. My FTP Server uses non-anonymous accounts, so I would be using my username/password to gain access to the FTP Server. I figured that maybe the DVD would need to be copied to my home directory, or parts of it.

 

Has anyone done this, and if so, what's my best bet for getting it working. Oh, I do have Mandriva 2006 Mini CD downloaded, so could use this to boot the PC and then connect over the network if possible, or would I need to create a boot disk instead? I don't particularly want to install the Mini CD, and then download/install additional components later.

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I only do netwotkinstalls. With boadband everywhere it´s silly to download iso. Anyway it takes more time to burn he isos then to install mandriva :).

 

What you need is the boot.iso. Download it from a mandriva mirror, burn it, put in the cdrom drive and reboot, choose netwok install, choose http (so you don´t need to configure network settings), dhcp and select a mirror. (check the path. If i says .../official/... change it to .../2006.0/... or else you will intall mandriva le 2005)

 

Good luck.

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Cool thanks for that. I already have the ISO, and my internet link is only 256kbps, so I would get a download rate of 32kbps. Not great.

 

If I have my local machine, I can use this boot iso of course, and then I would just point it to the Main directory for the source of what to install?!? Have you tried this, does it work?

 

If I use external FTP, I'll be at it for six or ten hours no doubt :P

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I keep thinking of doing this myself too, although the initial time would be a pain in the butt considering my link speed.

 

I would do the rsync at work, but they blocked the ports. I could then copy it to DVD and take home :P

 

I'll copy the DVD over and see if I can figure it out somehow.

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Speed Worried.. Try this cheat..

 

GEt the same directories set up and the main set of files in the right place the extra directories not the RPM Directories first

 

2. then set up the RPM Directories from your CD's (At least then you have the main files) copy the HDlists and other media info and then you can spend all week doing the Rsync to get all the extras you want..

 

3.Then point the FTP Directory so it looks just like the ones on the web and your done..

 

Thats actually how i did it, in the start.. Needed to get 10 Computers running basicly straight away the extras I left for a staff member to do at a later date when the rsync was completed..

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Right, well I'm testing so far in the office, and it's working so far, so I guess it should be a breeze when I get home.

 

So, what I've done so far is this. I copied the DVD to my FTP Server, into the following directory:

 

/home/admin/mandriva

 

the contents of this directory reflect the DVD, so therefore:

 

[admin@mdvftp mandriva]$ ls -l
total 544
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin     65 Feb 10  2004 autorun.inf
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin  18383 Feb  4  2005 COPYING
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin 167520 Jul 27  2005 default.xbe
dr-xr-xr-x  3 admin admin   4096 Sep 27 11:07 doc
dr-xr-xr-x  3 admin admin   4096 Sep 27 11:07 dosutils
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin 170496 Sep 23 11:45 export
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin  10232 Sep 16 14:31 index.htm
dr-xr-xr-x  5 admin admin   4096 Sep 27 11:07 install
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin   6932 Sep 16 14:31 INSTALL.txt
dr-xr-xr-x  6 admin admin   4096 Sep 27 11:07 isolinux
dr-xr-xr-x  2 admin admin   4096 Sep 27 11:07 lang
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin   4744 Sep 16 14:31 LICENSE.txt
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin    121 Jul 27  2005 linuxboot.cfg
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin      0 Oct 12  2004 MD5SUM
dr-xr-xr-x  4 admin admin   4096 Sep 27 11:07 media
dr-xr-xr-x  4 admin admin   4096 Sep 27 11:07 misc
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin  80097 Sep 27 11:12 pkg-2006.0.idx
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin   3444 Sep  1 18:03 README.txt
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin  24774 Sep 26 18:36 release-notes.txt
-r--r--r--  1 admin admin     58 Sep 27 11:12 VERSION

 

"admin" is the username I will use to connect to the FTP Server to do the installation across the network. Within the following directory:

 

/home/admin/mandriva/install/images

 

is a "boot.iso". Create a CD of this image, so that you can boot the PC in question. This will have all the relevant stuff to get your networking running. It will prompt you to choose a Static/DHCP IP address. I chose static, and then entered the relevant information for my network. Of course, you can use DHCP here if you wish.

 

After this it prompts me to choose an FTP mirror, of which I decided to enter the information manually. The reason for this is because I don't want to download from the internet when my connection is so slow. And since I already have the media, but don't have a DVD drive in the machine I want to install onto, I can use my local FTP Server with the DVD contents copied across. So, I enter the IP address of my FTP Server. I also specify the username/password for the "admin" account I will be using. Next, I need to specify the path to the install, which will be:

 

/home/admin/mandriva

 

continuing through now brings up the GUI to continue the installation, as if you were actually using the CD/DVD media. Depending on how much you select, will depend on how long the installation takes, of course. This might take a little longer than using media in the normal method, because you are going across the network. However, the end result is you have a fully working system, without having to download a set of CD ISO images or to move DVD drives from one machine to another.

 

Time for a :beer:

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OK, kind of having a few problems here. Tried it at work with a Virtual Machine running on the same machine that the source was, and the FTP install worked no problems.

 

However, trying it at home, and I get to where it's finding the list of packages to install, and it just sits there. The log file on the FTP server in question tells me that after 10 minutes, it just disconnected, obviously a timeout.

 

So not sure why it's actually not reading the data and timing out. Any ideas?

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Have also tried using NFS instead, as posted here:

 

https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?act=ST&f=14&t=30649

 

but it is too slow but works. Like trying to download over a 1MB link. My network is running at 100Mbps so not sure why it should be a problem. Normal FTP traffic using gftp or kftpgrabber is perfectly fine, and extremely fast with no connection errors.

 

I know the network is fine, but has something to do with the way the boot.iso CD I created doesn't seem to function correctly.

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