[Peeweelinux] Remote server boot system

[Jonathan E. Paton]

Hi,

Allow me to set the scene:

I have a dream... an exciting dream... I dream of co-locating
a rackmounted Linux box, hopefully someplace near the internet
(the 'net backbone that is).

However, the nearest co-location site (London) is about 400
miles away - thus keeping the requirement for travel down
would be important, and I'm currently thinking of a FLASH based
disk and a small Linux installation.  It would do:

 * Boot up the Linux kernel, with networking built-in.
 * Start SSH and some form of file transfer
 * Have enough to reconfigure and reinstall the main installation
   remotely.

Now, I'm wondering over the following issues related to FLASH:

 1. Can I easily make FLASH disks Read Only, for safety.
 2. What is the difference between the PeeWeeLinux PCMCIA->IDE
convertor and more expensive ones such as:

http://www.magicram.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=CDSDDA-03&Category_Code=PCA

And relating to the Linux installation:

 1. Is it possible to execute the built-in kernel, and
    instruct it to load another kernel from a HDD?
    (Perhaps OT).

 2. Would the software watchdog timer be enough for
    catching most failures?

 3. How would I reboot the system?  :)
    (clever ideas required here)

A rackmount PC gives me exactly one PCI slot - which may be used by a watchdog timer... so you can
*almost* regard PCI as not an option (unless it's a good suggestion :)  My budget can be
considered to be $0.01 for software, and limited to about $150 for hardware for supporting remote
boot.

Of course, I may have missed something so feel free to add suggestions/alternatives.  Pointers to
relevent documentation is much appreciated, seemly not much hope from LinuxDoc.  Either impart
valuable experience/knowledge, or simply ignore me :)

Thanks,

Jonathan Paton

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