Reinstalling the operating system via remote access?

Question

linux

A question characteristic of immigrants and their stay in the homeland of their parents. There is a parent computer and a parent who can insert a disc into the drive and sometimes read the error on the screen in English. In most situations, they save with raised VNC and RDP servers, but with horror I think what if I have to reinstall the operating system? The older generation will not be able to go through the entire installation with a handset by the phone. Who dealt with this situation? Do any Linux distributions, or maybe Microsoft, have a "remote installation control" option?

Answer 1

Good friends of immigrants who have remained at home can also help. Especially in exchange for help in acquiring and sending something from ebay.

Answer 2

I would suggest making a backup copy with Acronis, and then, in which case you can easily restore it by phone, since Acronis has a Russian interface

Answer 3

Well, or yes, as an option, any OS, be it Windows or GNU, has the ability to prepare an unattended installation (as it is called for Windows, there are FAI and so-called preseed for various Linux distributions ).

Answer 4

I did this: in front of the reinstalled computer, a laptop is placed with Skype enabled in video chat mode. We get an offline remote screen.

Answer 5

blog.remoteresponder.net/2011/03/23/debian-squeeze-60-installation-over-ssh/wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Remote
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Answer 6

You just need a normal iron with built-in kvmkoy.

Answer 7

I have not done such a task, but I know that it is solvable and I can outline a general algorithm for Windows XP \ 2003, I suspect that Win 7 can also be deployed, provided that the reinstallation will take place from XP to Win 7.
1. Find out what equipment is installed with the target system unit, especially pay attention to the network interface, we use a program like Everest.
2. We are looking for drivers for certain equipment.
3. We deploy the desired OS into a virtual machine, make all the necessary settings and presets.
4. We integrate the drivers found in step 2 into the system.
5. Minimize the image using Acronis True Image.
6. Transfer the image to the remote machine.
7. Install Acronis Echo Server on a remote machine; from Windows we tell you what to do, it initiates a reboot, loads itself, does the necessary operations and loads a new Windows.
8. If the computer has a static IP that comes directly to the physical interface via dhcp, then the network should rise by itself or almost by itself.
Nuances:
1. Acronis does not know all disk controllers, but many, if the program does not know your controller, nothing will break, just the system will not auto-rotate.
2. If the Internet is raised by launching ppp interfaces, first copy the address book and write a simple script that will launch a connection from the specified book on the new system (ask the user to launch or include an image in autoload or something like that).
3. Before minimizing the virtual system image, be sure to update the IDE controller driver to the Standard one in the system, if you skip this, the system may not be reconfigured for new hardware.
4. If the connection is ppp on the machine, but the dhcp settings do not arrive on the physical interface, write a simple script that binds to the interface name (the number at the end of the interface name changes after turning around and installing a new card, due to the fact that the system will remember that the interface is in the virtual machine was and for it it was the first, subsequent +1) and making settings to the interface.
You will get an independent and almost independent reinstallation.
It seems everything, if I remember something else, I will add it to the comment.

Answer 8

This option: many Linux distros come with a LiveCD, insert and work. For example, the latest ubuntas first boot live, and then run their installation. So, if LiveCD finds firewood for the network, then you can, for example, use TeamViewer.
Although, I think that the option with IP KVM is the most elegant.

Answer 9

Well, if you calculate that there is a “white” external ip, then you need to look towards IP / KVM. By the way, core i7 should have IPMI with support for KVM over LAN.

Answer 10

You can also put the seven on Skype from a neighboring laptop, there are questions only when the disk is partitioned. She will pick up most of the drivers herself and roll through windows update after connecting from the network, which she will not see - native disks with drivers will be saved. and then put codecs / browser / office / flash / java / archiver on rdp / teamviewer, more parents do not need. And if you don’t give them administrator rights yet, but explain how to be careful not to enter the admin password when installing the virus and that you shouldn’t put too much, it will work until the hardware dies.

Answer 11

A banal flash drive of any distribution kit known to you is made.
Any Linux installer is Linux itself.
Modify it a little so that after loading it, without asking anything, it raises the network and forwards an ssh channel to you to a known IP (or dynamic dns name) by key.
You are left with the task of handing over a flash drive with this installer to your parents or merging them with an image and a utility for writing images to a flash drive. Depends on the level of their computerization;)
What I use is archlinux. But it's easy enough, as far as I know, to do the same with debian/gentoo/slackware/whatever.
There are many additional difficulties in the form of unsupported hardware and wifi networks encrypted by the provider, or networks to which you need to connect in a special interactive way through the browser (Europe b **), but, in principle, this method works well.