Installing Red Hat-based distributions over HTTP

This guide applies to Red Hat, CentOS^?, Fedora and possibly other distributions as well. This example is for Red Hat AS4 i386. Other distributions should be the same, except you will need to point to the appropriate HTTP repository.

• Begin by booting off Installation Disc 1 or a boot-only disc for the distribution you would like to install.
• At the introductory 'boot:' prompt enter 'linux askmethod'
  • The installation kernel loads as normal, except it enters text mode.
• For language select the default 'English'.
• Keyboard is typically the default 'us'.
• For Installation Method select 'HTTP'
• Configure an IP Address using either DHCP or static IP. This is the only the IP for the installation itself, so you will have another opportunity to change the system's permanent IP address later on.
• For 'HTTP Setup', point to the correct server and directory. In this case 'Web site name:' can be either 'yum' or 'yum.loni.ucla.edu' and 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux directory:' is 'rhel4as-i386/disc1'
  • To confirm that you have a proper installation directory, in a web browser check that topdir contains a RedHat^?/base directory.
• When asked if you would like to test the CD, you can select 'skip'. This is typically unnecessary especially since all packages will be fetched over HTTP instead of CD.
  • If all goes well you should see an indication that the local installation media was detected successfully.
  • Anaconda (the installation GUI) now loads.
• Proceed with the Linux installation as usual.