Auto OS Install Process for Fedora

Question

In order to do an OS install, you need to have an external media to start the install process. This media provides a "base"/small system that you can then use to do a larger netinstall, or a larger update process to get the drive/system setup the way you want. All of the larger system install data/packages/etc can come from the http/net install process.

In most (all) cases I've seen, the process is then to take/remove the CD from the system, followed by a restart, where the system OS on the drive then gets invoked.

So this process requires some manual interaction.

Here's my question:
Is there a way to do the same basic process, except to always leave the CD in, and to then be able to "switch" the system, so it "knows" which media to install from.

If this can be done, one can setup a system with a basic cd that will, when run, create/start the basic OS install, but then not be used any other time... This could allow for an auto/programatic approach to be able to do a remote/auto OS install.

Is there any other way that this might be accomplished?

Comments

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Kickstart

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Thanks, but in looking at kickstarter, it doesn't allow as to how you'd be able to set the system to boot into one or the other OS partitions.

What I'd really like is the ability to set two partitions

PartitionA - base/minimal OS
 -used to just do a netinstall to setup partitionB with the real OS, and  the actual system that's going to contain the VM
 -when this partition is invoked, it automatically does a netinstall to  set up partitionB
 -after doing the netinstall, the process then resets whatever is needed  to then boot into partitionB

PartitionB - complete/full OS, along with all the rest of the system/env files -created by the netinstall process from Partition A, the minimal install/OS
 -has the ability to also do a "netinstall" to reinstall the OS for the partition A OS
 -has the ability to set the system, so the next reboot, it goes into Partition A

This kind of approach would allow me to have full/complete control, to be able to do remote installs of the OS on the different partitions, as well as control which partition gets booted on reboot.

And of course, a given OS could be updated using the normal yum processes. Does this make sense.

Answer 1

From what I understand you expect on partitition dedicated for installation of other partitions. I do not understand why you need that. Kickstart files offers you a completely automated way to install from disk images on local disks, over the network, and repositories. You can put your image on a partition, and treat that as your PartitionA. You could then use different kickstart files to setup systems with different customisations. Doesn't that work?

I maybe missing something, maybe you want to do this remotely. In that case it should still be possible, but you would need a separate "command & control" machine for that. I believe many vendors like Dell, IBM
offer such solutions. I have personally seen a Dell system with 10 real servers being installed & setup this way. If your setup is at home, you could repurpose a old machine for this purpose.

I Hope this helps,