How to install Centos 6.4 on a Headless Computer

Install Centos 6.4 on a Headless Computer

My laptop's graphics card suffered a massive heart attack and died. But its processor, ram, hard disk. ethernet, etc are in working condition. So the laptop could still function as some sort of a server: Print server, Bittorrent downloader, NAS, etc.

I choose Centos as the new server OS because I am familiar with it. But the problem is: I couldn't install Centos using the generic installer because it requires a monitor. I know how to install using a serial cable but the laptop does not have serial port. So I googled for a solution and I found this helpful wiki courtesy of Centos Wiki

However, the author mentioned that the solution was not working for Centos 6.3:

" *CentOS 6.3 minimal install CD (in process as we speak). Currently not working 100%. Does not skip disk verification. "

I verified and it is true. The problem is that the Media Check prompt was NOT bypassed and that means the user had to use the laptop's keyboard and display to bypass the media check. However, I experimented and made some modification to bypass the Media Check Prompt.

How to install Centos 6.4 on a Headless (And Keyboardless or Mouseless) Laptop

1. Follow the general and specific steps for Centos 6.3 outlined in VNC Headless Install.

2. To bypass the media check prompt:

a. Add "ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg" boot parameter in isolinux.cfg

b. #pwd
     /tmp/installDisk

c. echo > ks.cfg

3.  To point to repository in the DVD:

 1. Add repo=cdrom://sr0:/mnt/stage2 boot parameter in isolinux.cfg


Example

The following is an example of an isolinux.cfg incorporating the above modification:

label vnc-linux
  menu label ^Install or upgrade an existing system over VNC
  menu default
  kernel vmlinuz
  append initrd=initrd.img vnc vncconnect=192.168.2.1 headless ip=192.168.2.4 netmask=255.255.255.0 dns=192.168.0.1 gateway=192.168.2.1 ksdevice=eth0 ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg repo=cdrom://sr0:/mnt/stage2 lang=en_US keymap=us syslog=192.168.2.1:514

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