[App_rpt-users] Trying to install from a USB drive (Buddy Brannan)

[Adam Pawlowski]

I just went through this myself, and it was not fun. 

There are a couple of utilities which will let you build a bootable USB from
a CentOS ISO, most of which failed for whatever reason, I don't know what it
is that they're looking for. The biggest thing was switching from ISOLinux
to Syslinux, which you will find instructions on for any search on how to
boot an ISO from USB. However, instead of extracting or copying parts of the
ISO around, when it is looking for the CentOS sources, I needed to point it
to the ISO file itself, stored on the USB. I had originally extracted the
contents of it, which did nothing.

You will have to update paths on the boot menu as well as in the kickstarter
file to reference the harddrive install from sdb (or wherever it mounts)
instead of cdrom. 

I ended up with the install finishing and the stage1/stage2 post install
scripts either not running or not removing themselves from rc.local, and I
had to hash through that a bit by hand. Since I'm not sure why that would
have happened, if out of nothing other than my own folly, or lack of
understanding of how the unattended install was supposed to work, I'm
hesitant to post my ks.cfg or anything of that sort. 

It can be done though if you have the time.
 
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 17:59:20 -0500
> From: Buddy Brannan <buddy at brannan.name>
> To: app_rpt mailing list <App_rpt-users at ohnosec.org>
> Subject: [App_rpt-users] Trying to install from a USB drive
> Message-ID: <4748F13A-5557-4409-BDAD-4B2FC23A1050 at brannan.name>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> Howdy,
> 
> I think I must be missing something important.
> 
> I need to move my install to a new computer, as the old crappy one it's on
> now is fix in to crap out.
> 
> The machine that I have kicking around to use doesn't have a CDROM drive,
> but it will boot off USB. I verified this both by booting from a Chromium
USB
> drive and also a live Archlinux installation. However, burning either Acid
or
> Xipar to a USB drive seems not to work, giving me only a blank screen with
a
> blinking cursor, and no boot prompt or very much else.
> 
> From the Mac terminal, and even from the Linux terminal on the crappy
> computer, dd if=acid-somthing-or-other.iso of=/dev/disk1 (for the Mac, or
> /dev/sda for Linux)
> 
> The drive writes, it mounts, it has expected files on it, but it doesn't
boot to
> anything except a blank screen.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas?
> --
> Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV - Erie, PA
> Phone: (814) 860-3194 or 888-75-BUDDY
> 
>