Installation of Linux from Another Linux Box via HTTP

Notes

How to do a http network install using iso images copied from the cdrom and then mounted by loopback to a directory on the webserver

Creating ISO images from CD's

with redhat 1 disk

mount /mnt/cdrom dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/var/www/redhat/CD1.iso

with redhat 2 disk

mount /mnt/cdrom dd /dev/cdrom /var/www/redhat/CD2.iso

verify your new files using md5sum

Mount ISO image files to a local directory using the loop option of mount

cd /var/www/redhat
mkdir /var/www/redhat/disk1
mkdir /var/www/redhat/disk2
mount -o loop CD1.iso disk1
mount -o loop CD2.iso disk2

Copy all the source files into the one RPMS/ director

mkdir bothCDs
cp -Rv disk1/RedHat/RPMS netinstall/
cp -Rv disk2/RedHat/RPMS netinstall/

Make Network Bootdisks

cd /var/www/redhat/disk1/images
put a floppy in umounted and run...
dd if=bootnet.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k count=1

if you have an old network card then make the driver disk as well
dd if=drvnet.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k count=1

If you want to check them use md5sum

Launch the setup

Make sure the bios is set to boot from A:
Insert the disk and then choose http
Enter the IP of the server and the path from the webroot to the directory containing both sets of files i.e. http://192.168.1.5/redhat/netinstall/ don't enter the RedHat dir itself
The setup program should start it will only be text mode as gui mode install is not available with network install