[Sussex] Install via NFS

[Gavin Stevens]

At work recently, we had a batch of telephone kiosk servers returned to
us. This batch was never sent out by our customer owing to his end-user
cancelling part-way through due to a design fault in the kiosks.

We agreed to take them back as a gesture of goodwill to our customer.
The order long being completed, the machines had to be disposed of or
given to staff.

The machine is the size of shoe box & has a laptop-style HDD but no
floppy or CD-ROM.

I want to install Debian on it via NFS.

I've done some reading on the web & have made sure that all the required
NFS bits are installed on what will be the host machine.

My plan is to use the CDROM of the host so that the little server can
read a Debian netinstall image. Is this the best way or is it easier to
copy the ISO to the host's HDD & read it from there?

In /etc/exports, do I refer to the CD as /dev/cdrom? & what should I put
in /etc/fstab to make it distinct from the normal entry for the cdrom?

I intend to use a CAT5 crossover cable to connect the two machines.

The host machine has the bit of NFS on it that can issue IP addresses
via DHCP.

So far, the little server has had network booting enabled & sits there
waiting for DHCP, which is encouraging.

Any tips or tricks gratefully received.

TIA

Gavin.