Making the Server Appliance Headless

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Although not a requirement, as the OEM, you can make an appliance headless by configuring it to only be accessed remotely. A headless appliance does not use, or need to be connected to, a dedicated keyboard, mouse, or monitor.

After the target image is functioning correctly with all OEM drivers and custom software components installed, you can make it headless by running the \\oemtools\nullvga\saprep.exe utility on the Server Appliance Kit CD. If the -D flag is specified on the command line, the saprep command will remove the keyboard, mouse, and monitor drivers, and install the null VGA driver on the target image.

Note   A reboot is required after running saprep -d to make the changes take effect, for example, to make the server appliance headless.

Usage: SAPREP

[options]:

-d

Disable VGA, keyboard, and mouse devices.
OEM must remove the video card.

-v

Disable keyboard and mouse devices. VGA driver must be updated with null VGA driver.
OEM will keep the video card on the machine.

-u

Enable VGA, keyboard, and mouse devices.
Can be used to re-enable the keyboard, mouse, and monitor for troubleshooting.

The default action is to leave the devices enabled.

For more information about making an appliance headless, see the optional instructions in Preparing the OS for Replication.