>> >> I'm getting ready to install Gentoo on a remote bare metal server at >> >> SoftLayer: >> >> >> >> http://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/procedure/mount-iso-bare-metal-server >> >> >> >> Option 1 requires that I have "infrastructure deployed on SoftLayer" >> >> which I guess means a second server there which I don't have. Option >> >> 2 seems to require that I have a NAS at SoftLayer which I don't have. >> >> That leaves me with Option 3 which requires that I set up a VPN >> >> connection, enable java in my browser, and download "Java iKVM >> >> viewer". >> >> >> >> Is there a better way? If not, is there an easy way to set up that >> >> VPN connection? I've always read that OpenVPN is a bear and I've been >> >> lucky enough to avoid needing it all this time. >> > >> > Hi, >> > >> > Does SoftLayer provide a rescue OS for there servers? Or at least, >> > some amd64 linux that you can boot from PXE. >> >> >> It looks like they have both: >> >> https://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/procedure/launch-rescue-kernel >> >> https://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/learning/introduction-no-os >> >> Is the rescue kernel likely a way to boot to some attached OS with tools? >> >> Also I have several identical disks on this system if there's a way to >> leverage that for this purpose. > > The installation tasks before chrooting into the detared stage3 can be > achieved on any Linux based OS. So, boot on the rescue kernel, do the > first steps from it, and then chroot into your disk :)
The rescue kernel seems to only boot the same OS read-only and maybe some other tweaks. Unless I'm missing something, I don't think I'll be able to partition/format my disk after booting the rescue kernel since I'll be working from the OS running on the same disk I need to partition/format. Since I have multiple disks, could I boot sda as usual, install something I can boot to on sdb, switch the boot order and boot to sdb, install Gentoo on sda, switch the boot order back and boot into Gentoo on sda? - Grant
