Zentyal Forum, Linux Small Business Server
Zentyal Server => Installation and Upgrades => Topic started by: epretorious on December 11, 2010, 07:55:52 am
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Has anyone successfully run Zentyal from a bootable USB thumb drive?
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e.g., Collin C. MacMillan's tutorial for installing FreeNAS to a USB thumb drive using the FreeNAS embedded image - "Installing FreeNAS to USB Flash: Easy as 1,2,3 (http://solori.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/installing-freenas-to-usb-flash-easy-as-123/)"
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Another fantastic example of converting a distro to boot/run form USB thumb drive: Kevin Riggins' guide to booting BT4 from USB - "Backtrack 4 – USB/Persistent Changes/Nessus" (http://www.infosecramblings.com/backtrack/backtrack-4-usbpersistent-changesnessus/)
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Linux Live Scripts (http://www.linux-live.org/) may be the answer to my quest...
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There are several articles that detail the process of installing Ubuntu to a USB drive so this got me to wondering: Would it just be easier to create a Live USB drive using Ubuntu (using a purpose-built tool like usb-creator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Live_USB_creator)) and then install the Zentyal packages to the Live USB?
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FWIW: While reading over the usb-creator article on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Live_USB_creator) I discovered an interesting resource: An article that contains a List of Tools to Create Live USB Systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_to_create_Live_USB_systems).
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I haven't had time to make any progress on this topic but I did find another bit of useful information on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/): The list of external links (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD#External_links) at the bottom of the article about Live CD's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD).
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Please, I really need help with this.
I have a SanDisk 4GB Cruizer stick and I'm trying to install Zentyal into my new HP Proliant Microserver. It has no CD drive!! How should I do this - installation keeps asking me for CD?????
HELP ME PLEASE!
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Please, I really need help with this.... I'm trying to install Zentyal into my new HP Proliant Microserver. It has no CD drive!! How should I do this - installation keeps asking me for CD?
Aureleuz: Buy an external USB CD-ROM/CD-RW. e.g., I've always had very good luck with this Samsung SE-S084F/RSBS external CD/DVD Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151231).
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I tried and tred to get Zentyal instaling from a USB on a HP Microserver. I got it working to a point but then the drivers fo the install media couldn't be found... rather than wasting anymore time I ended up plugging a DVD drive into the onboard SATA and it installed perfectly from this. I'm sure its possible to install from USB if you have the time to play around with drivers etc.
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It's actually quite easy, if you know how.
Googled this up: http://www.kerwal.com/home/installzentyal203fromausbthumbdrive , thanks, Jeremy Walker!
The easiest way is:
1. Use UNetBootin to make a bootable USB Drive (standard ubuntu utility has the "vesamenu" bug)
2. Copy the Zentyal ISO to the same USB Drive, rename it to something short (like "zen.iso") for less typing later.
3. Load from USB - standard installation.
4. When it asks to look for CD-ROM drivers on removable devices, choose "yes" (somehow it won't mount without this step)
5. After it fails, start CD-ROM lookup again, this time agree to point it manually.
6. Alt-F2 to another terminal
7. ls /dev and find your USB drive (if you have one hdd, the usb drive will usually be "sdb" with one partition "sdb1")
8. mkdir /mnt/somename (create a directory to mount)
9. mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/somename (in this example USB Drive is sdb1)
10. ls /mnt/somename (make sure it shows the contents of your USB Drive)
11. Alt-F1 to your installation, when prompted to enter the CD-ROM device path, instead of /dev/cdrom put /mnt/somename/zen.iso
12. When asked to unmount the USB drive, choosing "yes" won't crash the installation.
The rest should be as usual.
Just installed it from USB, it works. Feel free to re-write to make this guide more comprehensible.
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Thanks for writing up this how-to. Please feel free to consider adding it to the Community Documentation: http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Documentation/Community
But just to clarify, I think the original poster was talking about booting Zentyal from USB, not installing it form USB. :)
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http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Documentation/Community/HowTo/InstallationFromUSB
And yes, it's a solution for reply #7 by aureleuz, not the original topic question, thanks for correction.
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The instructions from damage22 worked great with only one small exception. I had to had the "-t" for the mount command. Not sure why it didn't autodetect the filesystem type, but after I added the -t vfat, it mounted and I could finish the install.
Thanks damage22.
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Just to throw in another method, for those using Ubuntu Desktop, there is also the option of using the USB creator feature. Using that in conjunction with Plop Boot Manager (http://www.plop.at/en/bootmngrusblog.html), when necessary, is my preferred way to install from USB.
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Hi!
Finally my HP Proliant Microserver n36l arrived and I took advantage of the national holiday here and tried to install Zentyal 2.0.4 on it with the method described above, but I was not successful.
Unfortunately Step 6 ("6. Alt-F2 to another terminal") doesn't work for me. With Alt-F2 nothing happened.
Without this I can't proceed. So I thought I'll just install Ubuntu 11.04 desktop, which I know would work from the USB stick and the installation worked like a charme. I only read later, that Zentyal under Ubuntu 11.04 isn't really recommended and is lacking the webinterface. So there we go. So my install was basically useless.
I see a few options right now:
- Install a cd/dvd drive. But I don't really see why I should install a cd drive, just for installation
- Install 10.04 LTS and then the Zentyal packages, but as I understood it is missing the interface then as well
- Find a way to get around the problem with the non existent cd-rom drive.
Any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
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Hello!
I suggest you try the Zentyal 2.2 RC2 download, to see if it installs correctly. The developers hope to have addressed problems installing from USB sticks in that release.
If that works, 2.2 final is scheduled for release on the 14th.
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Hi Sam Graf,
Thank you for the quick reply. So if the release is so close, I might actually risk it. Until everything is setup and running, the release is out anyway. I'll check if the problem with the USB install are solved.
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I did install 2.2 rc2 using USB key and it worked smoothly.
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Hi Christian,
How did you do that? I just tried it, and I run basically into the same problems as for 2.1. Zentyal wants a CD/DVD drive to install, but I don't have one.
It would be great if you could give me a hint! I get to the point where it asks for the CDdrive to install from and as I have none, that's it basically. I thought they fixed that. Maybe I did something wrong in the preparation of the USB stick?
But I don't think so. I installed the final release actually. Or at least tried. ;-)
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I followed the steps describing the installation from USB, but I always get stuck when pointing the CD-Rom manually, because I am not presented with this option.
What I also don't get is why I need to have the Iso on the stick again, after making it bootable with Zentyal. Because with the desktop version of Ubuntu 11.04 I could just make the stick bootable with this ISO and it would install directly. Well, seems like Zentyal is not (yet) for me.
Have to see if I can improvise with 11.04 I guess.
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They did think USB installations were fixed, but maybe not? Our servers all have optical drives and so I have limited experience with typical USB installations. In those few cases where I've done it, I used the stock Ubuntu 10.04 desktop tool and it worked.
Maybe it would be worth filing a bug report, so that the developers could take another look at the problem?
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Well, at the moment I am not sure if I am doing something wrong or not. Because if it is my mistake or lack of knowledge it might not be a bug.
I put the USB stick in, fire up the installation routine and then it complains that it can't find my cd-rom drive. I also expected that this requirement for the cd-rom would be gone, but it seems it is not. As I said, installing 11.04 worked just fine, but ...
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I understand. I'm also reluctant to file bug reports because more often than not, I'm the bug. :-[
So the basic steps are, 1) download the Zentyal 2.2 ISO and then 2) use a tool/platform of your choice to make a bootable USB stick. There are various utilities for doing this under Windows, but I've just found it easiest to use the stock tools in Ubuntu. From what I'm reading, this is what you're doing. Even if it turned out to be something unusual in your process, that would be valuable knowledge for the community to have, so don't absolutely rule out the idea of submitting a bug report.
If you find out that you have no choice but to install Ubuntu separately, I suggest you use only the officially supported 10.04 LTS release. Using regular Ubuntu releases isn't supported and may not work properly post installation.
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Hi Sam, thanks for your responses.
I don't rule the out the bug report. But I will wait to see if there is an response from Christian, who said he managed to install from USB key without problems. Maybe I can find out what I am doing wrong.
yeah, I am using the 2.2 Iso and create a bootable usb key with UNetBootin. I tried to follow this tutorial http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Documentation/Community/HowTo/InstallationFromUSB, but the installation routine already is different to that.
First it searches for the files, than it says it can find them. Fine. If I click yes to repeat it will never end, so I go for no and get to a screen with various options and I go for the cd-rom again. There I can choose to look on removable devices, but nothing happens. It goes straight back to the screen where it says that it fails to find the cd-rom.
I can't give the path manually.
And I learned it the hard way that Zentyal doesn't work with 11.04. I had Ubuntu it up and running but then noticed that it won't work properly...
But at least I saw that Ubuntu 11.04 is working... ;-)
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Holch, I can't help because I just generate my USB key using Ubuntu "startup disk creator" and then installed without any single problem. So, no tips and tricks :-[
If this doesn't work for you, you should start looking at the way your USB key is defined and see in BIOS.
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Well, the thing is the USB key is working. Otherwise I couldn't start installation I guess. What is weired is when tell Zentyal to search for an ISO on a removable disk, it just goes back to the screen where it says: couldn't find the files on the cd-rom, blablabla. Of course you couldn't find it, stupid! there is no Cd rom... ;-)
Somehow it seems like it isn't looking for alternative media at all. However, I'll try the RC now. Because it worked for you with the RC, it didn't work for me with the release.
Maybe I also try to use the "startup disk creator" from Ubuntu. Thanks for the response anyway.
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Same problem with the RC. I'll try another trick now. Let's see if it works.
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I dont know if this can help you, but with the dd command you can make even any iso image boot from an usb without using any other external app. I've used it with dozens of linux distros (and BSDs and solaris ISOs) and this makes the usb thumb drive "becomes" an iso CD or DVD, at least my PCs dont see any difference before, during or after the installation procces. You can use this command from every unix system, of course linux flavours included
dd if=<route to zentyal.iso> of=/dev/<device node of the usb stick>
PD: I've just tested it, booted and installed zentyal inside a virtual machine using this method: no difference when using an install CD
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My problem is, that Zentyal always wants a CD-Rom during the install process, because it is looking for some files on the CD. But my Microserver doesn't have a CD drive. So I am desperatly trying to install things via USB. In the tutorial it says there is a way to tell Zentyal the path to the cd-rom so you could send it to the USB, but this option doesn't exist for me. That is my main problem.
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I understand. And in fact Zentyal (Ubuntu, really, at least initially) should not be asking for a CD at all during the entire process. This should be a seamless and painless process assuming that the developers have correctly identified and fixed the USB installation problems we had before. So you're trying to do something perfectly sensible and something you should be able to do--install the Zentyal 2.2 ISO without a CD.
So the idea is exactly right, but something is breaking down in the implementation, in the process. If we can figure out where things are going wrong, we can get you up and running. :)
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My problem is, that Zentyal always wants a CD-Rom during the install process, because it is looking for some files on the CD. But my Microserver doesn't have a CD drive. So I am desperatly trying to install things via USB. In the tutorial it says there is a way to tell Zentyal the path to the cd-rom so you could send it to the USB, but this option doesn't exist for me. That is my main problem.
I dont know if this can help you, but with the dd command you can make even any iso image boot from an usb without using any other external app. I've used it with dozens of linux distros (and BSDs and solaris ISOs) and this makes the usb thumb drive "becomes" an iso CD or DVD, at least my PCs dont see any difference before, during or after the installation procces. You can use this command from every unix system, of course linux flavours included
dd if=<route to zentyal.iso> of=/dev/<device node of the usb stick>
PD: I've just tested it, booted and installed zentyal inside a virtual machine using this method: no difference when using an install CD. It never asked me for a CD
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@nalare: if seen your response before. So if this is true, then there would be something wrong the way I create my bootable usb key. However, this problem existed in 2.1 and you needed some work around. Now I thought this was fixed in 2.2 and it seems like it works for you.
So I will try to create the bootable usb device the way you explained it.
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Another lead:
http://forum.zentyal.org/index.php/topic,8078.msg33019.html#new
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Hi Sam!
Thanks for the hint! I'll have a look at that. I was not using ubuntu to greate the stick though.
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It seems like the Ubuntu 10.04 utility is the tool of choice, under the circumstances. If you could confirm that it actually makes a difference in your case, that would be very helpful information to anybody else who gets stuck as you have. :)
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I did generate USB key to install 2.2 from Ubuntu 11.04 desktop and didn't face any single issue during Zentyal install, just in case it helps...
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I've had the problem you mention using tools like unetbootin. It seems like at any point of the installation, some OSes cant recognize the usb thumb (before that point they do because they see the iso image dumped to the USB like a CD iso image). It seems that Its something that have to do with syslinux
That's why Ive mentioned before the "DD way", because in those situations I haven´t had the problem again dumping the iso file to a USB using dd from an unix box (of course any linux will do). The dd command doesnt use syslinux or grub or any other bootmanager, during the whole procces the PC will see the same iso file copied in a CD or dumped to an USB thumb drive. So I'd bet the dd way will work in your case like it did in mine before
Sorry for my English
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To avoid syslinux and use isolinux it requires using an Ubuntu Desktop version prior to 10.04--9.04 was the last to support an isolinux boot, if I recall correctly. So we may have some conflicting information.
It'll be interesting to see what holch can tell us.
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Sorry that I didn't get back so far. As I am only a "hobby" sysadmin I can only work on this over the weekend and last weekend I had to finish a report, so I didn't get any further. I will see if I can work on it this week.
I will try to create the usb stick with the 11.04, as it is already installed. If that doesn't help I was thinking of installing Zentyal directly on the hard disc via a USB to SATA Docking station that I would connect to a computer with CD-Drive. Would this be a possible solution (after trying once again the USB Stick), or would this create problems?
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ahhh, and after the 11.04 way and before the hard disk way I'll try nalares dd thingy. I hope I'll manage that. ;-)
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OK, I have created a boot up stick with 11.04, worked fine.
Once I put it in my HP Proliant n36L and started to boot from it I get the following message:
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Syslinux: unkown keyword in Gfx boot.
Boot:
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I found a 10.04 LTS DVD somewhere in the office.
Will create that stupid stick from there now. But as this little thing here (I am actually writing from the Microserver under Ubuntu 11.04 - which by the way installed like a charm from USB!) has no DVD-drive, what causes the problem in the first place, I'll have to get to a computer with a optical drive first.
Maybe I should just install Freenas. At the end of the day, it will be used mainly as a small file server.
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OK, I have created a boot up stick with 11.04, worked fine.
Once I put it in my HP Proliant n36L and started to boot from it I get the following message:
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Syslinux: unkown keyword in Gfx boot.
Boot:
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If I recall correctly, that's the syslinux "problem" nalare was talking about. I think you'd have the same problem with a USB stick made under 10.04. I don't quite understand why some hardware works well with syslinux and some doesn't. Nor do I know what compelling advantage syslinux has over isolinux, especially since there are some frustrating compatibility issues under syslinux--or so it seems.
I am sorry this has been such a hassle. It is really discouraging when you can't even get past the installation phase. :(
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That is fine! It is not your fault, is it? But what do you mean with...
I am sorry this has been such a hassle. It is really discouraging when you can't even get past the installation phase. :(
Is it gonna get worse afterwards??? hahahaha....
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Actually, I was "fondly" remembering my own horrible experience getting Zentyal (or even Ubuntu, in my case) running on old server hardware. Everything but Ubuntu would install. I am traumatized for life. ;D
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Hi,
load your iso file from an another (2nd) usb stick, and you can use the old method (http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Documentation/Community/HowTo/InstallationFromUSB)! I think this is simplest solution.
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@wlaszi: Thanks for your response, but my problem is that I can't even choose where to search for the CD/DVD. I just get stuck there.
This weekend I'll give it another try.
Would it be an option to install Zentyal directly to the harddisk (connected via a USB Docking Station)? I could just take the main hard disk from the server and put it into my USB SATA Docking. Then I run a install DVD from my notebook and install it on the disk, which I then put back into the server.
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OK, here we go again. I was a little busy lately with project work and there was basically no weekend free since then. But tonight I decided to give it another go. There I have this nice little server and 3 hard disks waiting to be filled with our files, which we currently share from each hard disk.
I was a little frustrated by the flash drive install so I decided to take the company SATA HDD Docking Station and the 160GB hard disk which comes with the HP Microserver home and play around a little bit in front of the TV. I connected the docking station to my private notebook, running Ubuntu 11.04 and then I partitioned the HD. I already had installed Ubuntu 11.04 on it (see previous posts) and I wanted to keep it there, just in case. So I reduced the space for 11.04 down to 25 GB (5 currently used), increased the swap to 8GB (will probably want to upgrade the Ram one day) and separated the rest of the 160GB into partitions 25 and 90GB (no file system yet). All via the Ubuntu 11.04 on my notebook.
Then I rebooted and booted from cd-rom (the one of my notebook). Important was to note down that my notebook hd (also 160 GB - very confusing ;D ) was sda and the Microserver hd (in this case in the hd docking) was sdb.
Zentyal installation started just fine. The only slightly tricky part was the partitioning. Of course you need to make sure that you want to format the right parts (only going for the sdb). I set the 25gb partition to ext4 and "/" and the 90GB partition also to ext4 and to "/home" and the now 8GB swap as swap. Somehow Zentyal decided it wants to reformat the swap from sda as well, but I didn't really like this idea and took it out.
Installation worked quite well and I was able to boot from the usb hd to Ubuntu 11.04 as well as to Zentyal 2.2. I played around a little and configured some stuff. Looks pretty good so far.
Well, now comes the most important part. I'll have to take the hard disk with Zentyal installed and put it into the HP Microserver. I hope this works out well. But as it worked from the USB docking, I am quite confident that it will work in the server as well.
Then I will have to figure out how to configure the two 1TB hd that I have there for the file server. I would like to have them as a software raid 1. I haven't seen any option to configure this, but I guess without having the discs there is probably no posibility for this anyway. That probably will be one of my next questions.
I'll keep you updated!
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OK, so far the server is running. I put the 160gb hard disk into the first slot and in the second and third I have the 1TB disks. As described above, the zentyal installation is on the 160gb one and then I want a Raid 1 on the other two for our data files. Then, one day, the third slot will be for a disk to back up the raid on a short term basis and the sata docking station will contain the more long term backups. It actually has a esata connection, just as the microserver does.
OK, a good idea would be to use the same keyboard as you will use on the server, if you do the installation my way. But then, I guess I am a little weird. Most people will have the same keyboard layout on all computers, but I installed from a notebook with German keyboards and so far I haven't figured out how to get the keyboard to Brazilian layout. Quite annoying with a software like "Zentyal", where you have "z" and "y" on the keyboard, both switched in German.
And now my next task is to figure out how to have the two 1TB disks available for file storage and as a Raid. Then the thingy should be up and running. So maybe this helps someone who has similar problems with the installation from the usb stick. I guess it should work with a normal case for an external hard drive as well, but of course the disk must be bootable.
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Well, I am trying to install Zentyal from a USB stick but the install fails with a "Problem reading CD-ROM...".
I have read a few threads on this forum about this problem but could not find a definitive answer.
Is there a fix for the problem, or must I give up and find an alternative?
Any help would really be appreciated.
MidGe
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Hi MidGe,
I sorry for not responding for so long.
Well, here in this thread are quite a few hints. None of them really worked for me, so I found my own solution, as described above. Maybe you have an empty usb-housing for the harddisk and you can install Zentyal on this hard disk from a computer with DVD-Rom-Drive?
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PLEASE CLICK BELOW LINK FOR BOOTABLE USB CREATION
http://ishtiaqitsolution.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-make-bootable-usb-of-zentyal.html
OR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzikgKq0Lj8
Hi MidGe,
I sorry for not responding for so long.
Well, here in this thread are quite a few hints. None of them really worked for me, so I found my own solution, as described above. Maybe you have an empty usb-housing for the harddisk and you can install Zentyal on this hard disk from a computer with DVD-Rom-Drive?
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But just to clarify, I think the original poster was talking about booting Zentyal from USB, not installing it form USB. :)
LOL, Sam: More than 12 months and 50 replies (including my eight comments) but still no answers to the original question: Has anyone successfully installed Zentyal to a USB thumb drive (a la FreeNAS)?
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Another interesting but all-too-brief article on the subject of creating bootable distro's: Weekend Project: Create a Live USB Key Linux Distribution by Nathan Willis (https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/362829-weekend-project-create-a-live-usb-key-linux-distribution).
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Resurrect for solution.
I am currently installing Zentyal 3.0 from a USB-stick, and had the same problem with the installer insisting on accessing the CD-rom. This worked for me:
1) get zentyal iso
2) create bootable USB w. UNETbootin (from OSX in my case)
3) copy over zentyal iso to the bootable USB and name it zen.iso
4) eject USB and insert into target computer, run install until fail
5) in the installer menu, choose the enter a shell option
6) run the following cmds (where /dev/sdc1 should be your usb device)
umount /cdrom
mkdir /mnt/usb
mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb
mount -o loop /mnt/usb/zen.iso /cdrom
exit
7) rerun the Detect and mount CDrom option
8) done
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Great thanks to johant, it worked for me. But I am missing a graphical user interface. It seems, that ubuntu it self was installed only, without zentyal server.
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So, finally I installed zentyal from cd-rom, connected via USB and everything works.
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Resurrect for solution.
I am currently installing Zentyal 3.0 from a USB-stick, and had the same problem with the installer insisting on accessing the CD-rom. This worked for me:
1) get zentyal iso
2) create bootable USB w. UNETbootin (from OSX in my case)
3) copy over zentyal iso to the bootable USB and name it zen.iso
4) eject USB and insert into target computer, run install until fail
5) in the installer menu, choose the enter a shell option
6) run the following cmds (where /dev/sdc1 should be your usb device)
umount /cdrom
mkdir /mnt/usb
mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb
mount -o loop /mnt/usb/zen.iso /cdrom
exit
7) rerun the Detect and mount CDrom option
8) done
Worked on my HP Proliant Microserver N54L, installing Zentyal 3.5, with the only exception being that initially it didn't work after I burnt the flash drive with unetbootin. It installed Ubuntu Server only. It worked perfectly though with Rufus.
Thank you