Headless linux install

How do you do a headless install of linux? No monitor, no keyboard. Machine has floopy and cd drive. Can I configure a live cd to run sshd with a preconfigured pass or something similar and manage it via that?

Instructions for fedora 8+ would be ace but anything else also welcomed.

Cheers.

Solution 1:

For Redhat/CentOS/Fedora, you are looking for kickstart.

For Ubuntu and Debian you want to look at preseeding.

Both work in much the same way by feeding the installer a file that answers all the questions that the installer would normally ask you for. They also allow you to run scripts after the installation has completed, so you can customize the install.

Solution 2:

OpenSUSE and SLE have AutoYast.

Solution 3:

You can have linux (and grub and syslinux) redirect their output over the serial port to another computer, which you can then use to manage the installation. I suspect none of the standard installers will support this immediately, although it's easy enough to change if you're comfortable with rebuilding a distro iso.

kickstart will probably be quicker to setup for you, but it's hard to diagnose problems without any kind of feedback - if your kickstart script fails, you have no idea why.