[Linux-disciples] Completely remote install

[Stephen R Laniel]

Hypothetical: is it possible to install a complete Linux
installation on a remote machine? Say, I ssh into that
remote machine, run the installer, answer some questions,
and it reboots. I sign back in after it's rebooted, and
continue the installation. Possible?

In particular, suppose the remote machine is already running
some Linux distribution, and I want to overwrite it with
another Linux distribution. Suppose the remote machine
already has a running instance of sshd; the installer
overwrites the version on disk with its own, which is fine
at least until sshd restarts. If there are pre-existing
config files for a given program (say, ~/.ssh/*), it
preserves those. It doesn't delete any files unnecessarily;
however, where those files might cause conflicts with the
newly-installed versions, it behaves appropriately (perhaps
by prompting the user).

This doesn't seem in-principle impossible to me. Is there
any reason why it actually is?

-- 
Stephen R. Laniel
steve at laniels.org
+(617) 308-5571
http://laniels.org/