Installing OS X or Server - ssh, ARD or VNC only options

Giaguara

Giaguara

Chmod 760
Staff member
Mod
Soo...

How to achieve this?

Got a Mac Pro in a server lab... it has 2 hard drives, IP address is static and assigned from Sys. Prefs, not from DHCP server in the location.

I don't have physical access to lab, and I want to install 10.4 or 10.4 Server on the *other* partition that is empty at the moment. Has to be clean isntall, so can't just clone the existing hd. Both hard drives are 500 GB, other has only 10.4.10, other is empty. If it will make it work better, it will be an option to partition the empty one.
VNC, ARD and ssh work.

How can I install Mac OS X or Server??? Install discs can be located either from another Server where it is backed up, or local dmg or ISO file.

Would selecting Server to be installed instead enable ssh to be open from when it boots to installation? As long as ssh, ARD or VNC in any combination enable me to log in it should work. (or even just ssh, can always kickstart)
It may get another IP though when booted to installation as I've got no guarantee it's totally bound to MAC addresses... no one has a clue of how the DHCP server settings work in that location.

I would love to use asr to restore as that would be a lot more simple, but I would still need to install the version I want to have restored somewhere else. That's not an option .. as the only space available for that is on that Mac Pro.

How can I do this? :)
 
If you have physical access to the XServe then you can use the serial port to set the IP address manually.

Connect up a null modem cable to the serial port on the back of the Xserve to another machine with a display and a serial port. I found an old windows laptop running "hyperterminal" which comes bundled as a default program under Start/Accessories/Commincations is useful for this.

Run the serial terminal program and connect to the XServe with 57600 baud, 8 bit, 1 stop bit, no parity and you should see a logon prompt appearing on the terminal program. If the XServe is fresh out of the box, then you can log in as "root" with password being the first 8 characters of the long serial number printed on the back of the machine.

Once you log in to the machine as root, run the command,

ipconfig en0 manual 192.168.10.10 255.255.0.0

change the third argument for your IP address and the fourth to your subnet mask.

that will force the xserve to take the given address and make the ethernet port available until the next reboot. Once you've done that you can use the GUI tools such as "Server Admin" to complete the setup across the network.

NB. The ipconfig command is not persistent across reboots so you have to set the right network settings via the GUI tools as well to make the change permanent.

there is also the commandline tool

"serveradmin network settings"

which you could investigate. I'm not sure of the syntax for it but it allows you to make persistent changes from the command line.
 
.... or perhaps:

Use Disk Utility to make an image of the install DVD.

Copy the image onto the 10.4.10 partition you already have

Use VNC on the desktop of that machine to mount the image and run the installer

Install onto the blank partition, change over the start disk

before rebooting, edit the file

/Volumes/NewPartition/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

to put the new network configuration - eg. cut and paste the relevant lines from the existing config file at

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
 
The thing is ...
it is in a lab. No physical access to even get the DVD there. Or to the ethernet or fc ports for that matter.
So all VNC or ARD or ssh.
And as it's a Mac Pro, the Xserve serial trick won't do the trick.

If I had something to clone it, or some other volume to make a netinstall image of it, it could work.. but the only thing I could mirror it is it's other drive. So that obviously will not work.

I could try the second options,
/Volumes/NewPartition/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
etc etc,
but when I start to install it even to another partition, it will still be asking for a restart...
 
How urgently does 10.4.10 need to be installed? eg. Is the machine needed overnight / could you announce an outage will occur a fortnight and let whoever uses this machine plan round that & then do the upgrade when you can acces the hardware? I think that would be the most predictable way to go about it.

You may be able to run the OSInstall.mkpg on the DVD or a disc image directly, eg. don't click the icon for 'Install Tiger' but go into the System/Installer directory on the DVD and launch OSInstall.mkpg, that looks like it will let you put Tiger on without a reboot. I don't have a spare partition to check that actually works though, so Caveat Emptor!
 
I have 10.4.10 on that partition... but I need a clean on the other.
As long as I upgrade another machine, say MacBook to which I have physical access, that can do for a while, but still... I find it very frustrating to figure how to install on it when I have no physical access to even bring the discs.
Not that urgent, as I started to wonder it 2 months ago... but eventually needs to be done.
 
It would be possible to do this by creating two partitions on the blank drive,

one partition starts as an exact image of the install DVD, you can use Disk Utility disk image / restore features to do this. The second partition is the rest of the hard drive which will hold the working OS.

You would need to tweek the partition which is the copy of the install DVD to allow you remote access, eg. adjust preferences.plist, make sure you can run SSH and/or VNC when booted from that partition.

select the partition which is a clone of the install DVD as the startup item and reboot the machine, and boot into the install environment with remote access and without needing the DVD physically in that machine.

From there install into the large 2nd partition, tweek that partitions preferences.plist to give you network access again, select that as bootable and reboot.

getting physical access seems much easier.
 
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