I don’t have spare peripherals like a monitor and a keyboard. How do you suggest I do a bare-metal install of Debian on a computer (meant to be a server)?
https://github.com/philpagel/debian-headless
It is possible but I wouldn’t do it. Too much effort for too little result.
Just plug your main monitor / keyboard into the server, run the setup and don’t install a DE. Afterwards login, enable SSH, unplug the monitor and do whatever you need over SSH.
Let’s face it, you’ll have to do this procedure once every xyz years, there’s no point in complicating this stuff. Also depending on your motherboard you may or may not be able to boot into the installer without a screen / keyboard attached. Another option is to install the OS in another computer and the move the hard drive to the target server - this is all fine until you run into UEFI security or another detail and it doesn’t boot your OS.
All I have is a laptop. I’m getting these machines for free from a friend
Take out the hard drive out of your laptop and put the drive for the server in it, install Debian using the built in monitor and keyboard of your laptop.
Well I see your problem, but you’re going to have a bad time without a screen. Maybe you can get something second hand / cheap or even ask a friend to borrow one for a few days?
If you really, really, really don’t want to buy a keyboard and monitor, you can buy a USB KVM console, but it’ll likely cost more. Something like this: https://www.startech.com/en-us/server-management/notecons01
Wow that’s expensive. But thanks something to keep in mind. I’m planning to build my own $25 KVM with Chinese parts off of Aliexpress and PiKVM (if that’s possible)
PXE boot? It must be enable in the bios already. Then you could prep a image and deploy it that way.
I don’t think it’s enabled, but I guess I can’t check
Usually I want to see the BIOS settings at least once. So that’s enough reason to carry a keyboard + monitor there.
Otherwise that network boot option with a TFTP server comes to my mind. But I have never tried it on a new, empty machine.
I use a KVM over IP.
I made my own tiny pilot device for less than £100 and it has worked flawlessly for a few years.
This assumes your server has a hdmi output, if not you will need a VGA to hdmi or similar converter, danger of it becoming a bit of a hodge-podge of adapters, but hey, if it works, it works!
I’m planning to use a Raxda Zero 3W/Banana Pi Zero for this. Do you think this will suffice? I don’t need speed or power, it just needs to be usable.
I’ve no experience with either of those devices. So long as they’re comparable in terms of USBC features (otg) to emulate the keyboard and mouse then you should be good as the overhead of running the software seems to be minimal from my usage.
Without that, you’ll get video without keyboard and mouse support.
Thanks, I’ll take a look!
Not sure about debian, but the archlinux iso has ssh on per default, so if you have no other bootable drives in your server other than the usb with the iso, just fire it up and try to connect to it via ssh.
Arch linux install wouldn’t be a problem really because the way the install is done. Pretty sure I could it all over SSH. Unfortunately, Debian isn’t exactly that…
A Debian preseed I guess
