Remotely installing Debian using a web browser

wiki.debian.org

24 points·known··4 comments

Hmm, I see a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue.. How do you configure the IP address if there's no monitor or input devices? Most colocated sites I've worked with requires static IPs. Perhaps it could be burned on the CD - add a tool that takes that info, and makes a ISO specific for that server. CD-Rs are expendible anyway these days. I could have used that last week. I had to drive serveral hours to go onsite to install a Debian server. If I could have mailed a CD-R to the guys, and done the install remotely, I could have saved a bunch of hours.

Yes, the idea is that you would boot the target machine using a CD and then connect to the machine via a web browser to finish the installation.

From the article:

The idea is booting the target machine with a Debian installation image preseeded with a fixed / dynamicaly assigned ip address that start up a web server that allows the sysadmin to connect to with a simple web browser and perform the whole installation process comfortaby sat at his desk.

In a datacenter where you control the DHCP assignments, it would be fairly easy to determine the IP address of a new server, since the MAC address is usually on a label somewhere on the chassis.

For a remote install, you could either configure the IP before burning the install media (as you suggested), or have the installer scan connected USB devices for a known config file name, and load configuration from it. That way, all you would need to do is have the colo tech load a file you emailed them onto a thumb drive, and then insert that into an available USB port on the server before starting installation.

Wow - this is exactly what I needed this morning actually. Is this mirrored anywhere? The site is down it appears.

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