[OT] automated remote install of Linux from WinNT4

From: Torrey Hoffman (torrey.hoffman@myrio.com)
Date: Wed May 02 2001 - 17:46:13 EST


Apologies for the off topic post. I have searched Google, Freshmeat
and Sourceforge without success, and this is where the smart people
are...

I need to do an automated, remote installation of Linux on a large
number of networked computers running Windows NT 4.0. I can place
an executable on each of these computers and run it with Admin
privileges. These computers are using an NTFS file system and have
unpartitioned space available.

So, I need a Windows NT program that can create a bootable Linux
partition, and then reboot into Linux from that partition.

Does anyone know of anything like that?

If nothing like this exists, I will have to write it in the next
month or two.

My hypothetical plan is to (1) port a recent LILO or GRUB to
Windows, and then (2) write a Windows NT program that creates a
small FAT32 partition, formats it, mounts it, and copies in the
kernel, modules, init, and a minimal set of essential files.

It would then run the Windows NT port of LILO/GRUB to set up the
MBR to boot Linux from the new partition.

The minimal Linux install would bootstrap the rest of the Linux
install over the network.

Thanks for any advice or hints anyone can provide...

Torrey Hoffman
torrey.hoffman@myrio.com
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon May 07 2001 - 21:00:15 EST