Tips July 21, 2004 at 9:48 am

Headless Xserve install

Nobody told me it didn’t come with video!Keep in mind that one of the easiest ways to install an Xserve is to boot it into firewire target disk mode, connect it to another machine, and then use Disk Utility on the other machine to create the RAID set and restore an OS X Server image onto the drive.

Doing it this way should take your install time down to about 10 minutes.

No Comments

  • I read that you built a Raid-set. Do you know if there are any issues on
    making
    a software raid out of 2 drive modules and using this Raid-set as the Boot
    volume ?

    I’ve been reading a lot of opinions on this subject…

    • Don’t believe the hype. Apple had boot drives in mind when they created the
      software RAID setup. Mirror RAIDs work great for boot drives. I even believe
      that you can boot from a stripe, but you shouldn’t want to.


      Changing the world, one server at a time.

      Joel Rennich
      http://www.afp548.com

    • I’ve done the name on my machine using CCC performing a daily back up at
      midnight onto the 2nd hard drive. Does anyone know how to get the psync
      side of it working so that it syncronises, rather than just overwrites? I get a
      message saying that it doesn;y work on Panther at the moment – is there a
      work around, or do we just have to wait for that function to be added?

  • Along the lines of working with a headless Xserve: put the Xserve into
    Firewire Target Disk mode and connect another Mac with a firewire port (like
    a PowerBook); then select the Xserve hard drive as the boot volume for the
    PowerBook.

    Voila–when the PowerBook reboots, it’ll naturally present the Xserve OS on
    the PowerBook’s monitor and keyboard.

    This only works if you already have an OS on the Xserve–but if you use the
    "install" button on the Server Install Tool that opens when you first insert the
    Server Install CD, it’ll boot the PowerBook from the CD for the first CD install
    and then will restart the PowerBook from the Xserve HD for the second CD
    install.

Leave a reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.