Remote Installation (no physical access)

[AndrewFram]

I bought a dedicated server from a web hosting company that comes with RedHat Linux preinstalled. I do not have physical access to the server (which has no monitor, mouse, or keyboard).

I was told I can do a "full blind" windows 2003 installation on this remote machine...how do I do that?

For now, I can SSH into the server and I guess I can mount an ISO image of the installation CD, but then what?

 

[itsp1965]

Don't know how it works at your hosting facility but most servers can be accessed through a management interface like ILO/RILOE (HP servers), RSA-II (IBM), ILOM (Sun) that allows you to mount a remote CD image boot the server from it and then proceed to install the OS and be able to view whats going on through video redirection to your web browser.

 

[58sniper]

I was told I can do a "full blind" windows 2003 installation on this remote machine...how do I do that?

Do they not provide you with that information?

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[mrdenny]

I would expect your hosting provider would provide you with the information on how to setup the server. If not you may want to find one that will.

Denny
MVP
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2008 BI / MWSS 3.0: Configuration / MOSS 2007: Configuration)
MCITP (SQL 2005 DBA / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2005 DBD / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 BI)

My Blog

 

[Zelandakh]

If it has Linux, they may assume that SSH is enough for you. If you want Windows on it, they may not see that as part of the deal.

 

[AndrewFram]

There was an option for the server to come with windows, but we would have to pay for the license, and we already have one available. So we were told we could do a "full blind" install and that it was a common practice.

The hosting company does not support changing of operating systems, and they gave us SSH access.

The unattended installation apparently requires a network share which is not available.

 

[mrdenny]

I've never heard of a full blind install and I've been doing this for over 10 years. I'd ask them for specifics.

Denny
MVP
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2008 BI / MWSS 3.0: Configuration / MOSS 2007: Configuration)
MCITP (SQL 2005 DBA / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2005 DBD / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 BI)

My Blog