Red Hat Knowledgebase

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has the ability to do a graphical installation over a VNC interface.

In order to do this, pass the 'vnc' option at boot time. For example:

boot: linux vnc

This, however, will prompt you for some information before the VNC server is started.

keyboard type (keymap)
language (lang)
network information (ip)
method

Usually, if you want to do a remote installation you are not near the server and do not want to have to sit at the terminal and answer these questions.

You can pass the above parameters at boot time to avoid having enter them at the prompt. For example:

linux vnc keymap=us lang=en_US ip=dhcp method=nfs:servername:/path/to/tree/

With these options passed to anaconda at boot time, you can insert the boot media, boot anaconda, and connect to the server via VNC to finish the installation. However, you still have to type the boot options shown above.

There are ways around this for a full remote installation. However, you have to have an alternate way of booting the anaconda image and passing it boot options, i.e. PXE boot or a GRUB bootloader from a previous installation. This article will not go in to the details of these more advance methods.

There is more information is available at:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Manual Install Guide:

  http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/x8664-multi-install-guide/ap-bootopts.html