is this practical?

[jmb]

I'm working on building a golden image, and wanted to practice some installs. Unfortunately, I don't have easy access to other servers for test purposed.
I am building the image on a little rp2400 (2 x 73g), along with a 2100 disk array (4 x 73g).
Is there any way to use the 4 disks in the array (they're empty) as "targets", or is that more complicated than it's worth?

Thanks.

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi jmb,

No it's not hard, but in this case it would be fruitless.
Because if you're going to reload that system you won't have access to those disks.
You have to place the image on another server. The server must be up & available to pull the image from.
What about connecting the 2100 to another host & use the extra space to hold the image?

Rgds,
Jeff

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

Is this a golden image via tape or CD? If so, this will work fine. When you boot up with the tape / CD, you will select whatever disk you want to install to. You can install to any disk on your system.

The thing to be aware of is that the installation process will set your Primary boot disk to whatever disk you are installing to. In order to boot from your original drive you will have to interrupt the boot sequence (you know the "Press any key within 10 seconds" bit), and from ISL change your primary boot disk back to what you want and then boot.

I'd boot the system, interrupt the boot process and make a note of what your primary disk currently is. Also make sure you know what all of your SCSI paths to the disks are so that you don't inadvertently install over on your good boot disk.

I would also make a make_tape_recovery tape of your system just in case you do something silly like overwrite your primary boot disk.

It would be preferable to have a little test system you could use, but your way will work fine as long as you take some precautions.

[Patrick Wallek]

I should add that if you are going to try to do this via the network, then this won't work. You can't do a network install to yourself.