reinstall centos from within a working install

[bulwynkl]

Hi Folks,

this is at least in part a theoretical question... but since it should in theory be possible, I'm wondering if it hasn't already been done/existing tool set...

scenario - remote access to a VM, no access to OOB, no capacity to mount iso. For "reasons", there is a desire to reinstall the whole OS from scratch and start again

"reasons" in my case are I have a tangled mess of dependencies and configuration from an install and it's quicker to reinstall from scratch rather than figure out what the problem is and fix it...

the sort of thing I had in mind might be something like...

create a temporary disk partition with the contents of the boot iso inside it, appropriately configured.
modify grub to boot from it.
boot
blow away the current install via the installer
boot
blow away the temporary disk/installer - or leave it there for future use...

Has this been done?

[TrevorH]

It's possible to copy the kernel and initramfs from the install media to /boot and add them to the grub boot menu. There are some details for grub legacy http://www.owlriver.com/tips/minimal-installer/