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Installing Debian using the IDRAC system on Online.net?
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Installing Debian using the IDRAC system on Online.net?

DroidzoneDroidzone Member
edited November 2013 in Help

Could someone tell me how to proceed, to install Debian or any other Linux distro using a remote ISO using the IDRAC system provided by Online.net?

They provide IDRAC access. I would like to install Debian squeeze which is not offered via their control panel.

Comments

  • from. the IDRAC launch a virtual console, set a virtual cdrom, connect to it an iso from your filesystem or from an url, set bios boot to the virtual cdrom and reboot.

  • Their documentation provides a way to load an ISO from my PC. I cant find an option to get the ISO from a remote URL, like @abravo mentioned.

  • DalCompDalComp Member
    edited November 2013

    @joelgm said:
    Their documentation provides a way to load an ISO from my PC. I cant find an option to get the ISO from a remote URL, like abravo mentioned.

    I see.

    A bit out of topic, I can not use virtual media from online.net's iLO, server won't boot from ISO. I spawned AWS instance in EU and load ISO from there... (thanks to the other LET thread for the free AWS credits).

  • @joelgm: mmh, maybe I mix up IDRAC and iLO. They do basically the same stuff. I can check out that later from my online.net console...

  • DroidzoneDroidzone Member
    edited November 2013

    @abravo said:
    joelgm: mmh, maybe I mix up IDRAC and iLO. They do basically the same stuff. I can check out that later from my online.net console...

    That would be awesome. Thank you.

    My home network is something like 512 Kbps. Loading an ISO from my home would take a day at least. :)

    The only other solution I can think of is running a VNC off a VPS, and running IDRAC from it. However I cant seem to get java to run properly from a browser on a VNC.

  • earlearl Member
    edited November 2013

    It's better if you can RDP to a server that has a 100Mbps or 1Gbps port then load the IPMI from there.. I'm sure there is a few VPS providers that offers windows 2003 server for LEB pricing.

    otherwise if you want to load from your home computer you can load a netinstall of Debian(222 MB)..

    http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.2.0/amd64/iso-cd/debian-7.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso

    if you dont mind squeeze it's 50MB

    http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/6.0.8/amd64/iso-cd/debian-6.0.8-amd64-businesscard.iso

    or Centos

    (342 Mb) - minimal

    http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/centos/6.4/isos/x86_64/CentOS-6.4-x86_64-minimal.iso

    (230 MB) - netinstall

    http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/centos/6.4/isos/x86_64/CentOS-6.4-x86_64-netinstall.iso

    download the ISO to your computer and load it to the virtual media of your server.

  • @joelgm said:
    The only other solution I can think of is running a VNC off a VPS, and running IDRAC from it. However I cant seem to get java to run properly from a browser on a VNC.

    bad luck, I can't launch the online.net net IDRAC by now, to see if a URL is possible for the virtual iso. Different tries didn't work. It has happened once in a while before. So waiting for that to be fixed, I can anyway tell you of another method for installing almost any OS from iso locally (on the server box). I do that when virtual KVM console isn't provided but a rescue linux, for installing OpenBSD, my choice OS, often not offered by providers.
    You had probably heard of it but forgot:

    • boot in the rescue linux.
      It's often a Debian. If another dialect, adapt accordingly. Install qemu:
      (apt-get update) apt-get install qemu
      Get also a terminal multiplexer like screen or tmux: apt-get install tmux
      Download from the rescue linux, your iso (maybe get easy tools: apt-get install ncftp/wget/links/...)

    • launch tmux or screen. In one console you will run qemu, on the other you keep running the rescue system and you can kill qemu from there.

    • trigger the qemu emulation matching the cpu version of the OS you will install, in curses
      mode:

    qemu-system-x86_64 -curses -hda /dev/sda -cdrom your-image.iso -boot d

    -hda: the server real harddisk, so in linux /dev/sda. If no hw raid with two disks then -hda /dev/sda -hdb /dev/sdb
    -boot d : to boot from the iso

    you can configure network in qemu with default dhcp but don't forget to write the actual server configuration in /etc of the newly installed OS, while you're still in qemu in case the OS filesystem isn't write accessible from the rescue system (the case for BSDes, linux people for some dumb reason build a default write-only UFS module). In your case, it doesn't matter, you can modify the new installed linux from the rescue one.
    (BSD people must modify from qemu not only the IP parameters, but the ethernet device name and disk interface names in /etc/fstab).

    Thanked by 1Shot2
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @joelgm said:
    Their documentation provides a way to load an ISO from my PC. I cant find an option to get the ISO from a remote URL, like abravo mentioned.

    Most ipmi solutions these days don't do this effectively without a samba share. RDP from a KVM vps somewhere is the best option. It's clear that most weren't intended for long distance loading of large ISOs.

  • earlearl Member
    edited November 2013

    Yeah I had that on one of the supermicro IPMI, but could really get it to work.. maybe it only works if you had a local share you can connect to.

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