How do I make an OESsp2 network installation server?

…self-submitted…

This one’s easy… once you know how to do it… 😉 Seriously, setting up an installation server for OESsp2 is a bit trickier than setting up and installation server for good ol’ OpenSuse, mostly because OES is based on SLES9. And here’s the easiest way to do it, not the only way…

  1. Get a Linux server that will be your Apache2-based HTTP network installation server. Make sure Apach2 is already configured and running.
  2. Copy the ISOs for OESsp2 to a subdirectory on that server, like /tmp/iso/ for instance.
  3. Create a destination directory target for the script your going to run in the next step. You may as well create it directly under the apache document directory; on Suse, this is /srv/www/htdocs/ by default. So, your target directory might be something like /srv/www/htdocs/install/oessp2/
  4. Configure your new directory to be served by Apache2. See this example (and please notice the “FollowSymLinks”, which is the most important part since the script creates soft links), and restart Apache2 when finished:

    Alias /install/ “/srv/www/htdocs/install/”
    <Directory “/srv/www/htdocs/install”>
    Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    </Directory>

  5. Get the netInstall.sh script from Novell, and run it from the console or a shell session on that server. It will prompt you for the path to the ISOs, and a destination path for the extracted result directory; this should be the same target as specified above, for instance /srv/www/htdocs/install/oessp2/. Either way, you should choose a destination path that is visible from the Apache2 service. A couple major heads-ups here: trying to run the script across a filesystem mount (like on another machine or from an nfs export or something) will only cause you problems with permissions and soft links that the script creates. For pete’s sake, just run it on the console or in a ssh session. To put a fine point on it, the netInstall.sh script, the ISOs, the target, and you should all be on the same server.
  6. Burn the ISO for disk1 to a cdrom. This is the only one you’ll need. Boot to the cdrom.
  7. Now, follow the excellent instructions on the Novell Documentation site for OES.

At this point, you should be on your way to happily installing yet another OESsp2 server on your network. Don’t forget about the EVMS/NSS “gotcha”… and the extra IP address if you’re installing iFolder3… and so on…

😉

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