Re: installing on a VPS

[Brian Buhrow <buhrow%nfbcal.org@localhost>]

	hello.  Some years ago, I installed NetBSD-5 on a Rackspace server.  What
I remember doing, and it has been a while, was to put the machine into
recovery mode, then, dd a preformatted image on to the disk.  As I recall,
once the image was on and booted, I was able to log in and configure a
raid1 mirror, since the image thought it was part of a raid1 raid set and
things worked quite reliably while we needed it.
	If this is a xen installation for the VPS, I'd suggest doing the same
thing.  Make sure  you have the network configured in the image you lay
down with a fixed address that you know and which you can reach, so once
you tell the system to boot, you can log in remotely.

	You may need to try several times with creating the image before it
works, but I think it will be pretty straightforward, once you figure out
how to use the Rackspace tools.

-Brian

On Aug 30,  3:52pm, Al Zick wrote:
} Subject: installing on a VPS
} Hi,
} 
} I really hope that there is someone who can help me. I want to  
} install NetBSD on a rackspace VPS. I have NetBSD running on a VPS  
} hosted by someone else, and they use a very different system for the  
} install and I could mount a NetBSD ISO to do the install. This worked  
} well. However, the install on rackspace is more of a problem. I would  
} like to create an image of the running VPS with dd and ssh. Then I  
} would like to put the rackspace VPS in recovery mode and once again  
} use dd to install it on /dev/xvdb (which will be /dev/xvda after  
} switching back from recovery mode).  They said on rackspace that I  
} don't need a Xen kernel.
} 
} I would like to use the NetBSD boot loader, but the current install  
} of Linux uses grub. What boot loader should I be using?
} 
} If dd is successful, then I should only have an 8GB root partition on  
} rackspace, but rackspace is giving me 150GB of disk space. Is there a  
} way to either expand the root partition, or should I create separate  
} partitions for /var, /usr, and /home? I could then use "dump |  
} restore" to move their contents from root to their own partitions.
} 
} Is there a better way to install on rackspace?  They talk about using  
} a VHD image. Can I convert an image created with dd into a VHD image?
} 
} Also, there is an example of using iPXE. Is this something that is  
} supported by NetBSD?
} 
} Kind Regards,
} Al
} 
} 
} 
} 
>-- End of excerpt from Al Zick