Also, the word you’re looking for is: “headless”, as in, “headless install”

Plug drive in main computer, install Debian on it along with network config and SSH access, put drive back into server and power on.

I guess technically you can also make an ISO that will just auto wipe the drive and install upon booting it but you still need a keyboard to get into the boot menu.

While I agree with most people here that finding a keyboard and screen would be the easiest option, you do have a couple of other options:

• Use a preseed file A preseed lets the installer run completely automatically, without user intervention. Get it to install a basic system with SSH and take it from there. You’ll want to test the install in a VM, where you can see what’s going on before letting it run on the real server. More information here: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed

• Boot from a live image with SSH Take a look at https://wiki.debian.org/LiveCD in particular ‘Debian Live’. It looks like ssh is included, but you’d want to check the service comes up on boot. You can then SSH to the machine and install to the harddrive that way. Again, test on a VM until you know you have the image working, and know how to run the install, then write it to a USB key and boot the tsrget server from that.

This all assumes the target server has USB or CD at the top of its boot order. If it doesn’t you’ll have to change that first, either with a keyboard and screen, or via a remote management interface sych as IPMI.

When i was doing a headless install, i spend a hour or two trying to figure out how to pre setup configs for the debian installer or how to do it over network or what before i finally lugged the new machine to the other room and plugged it into the monitor and keyboard of the main rig, installed it all (and set up ssh so i can later get into from the main rig), and unplugged it.

My point is, even if it isnt trivial to have the keyboard and monitor, it may be much easier to get them than to really do an install without them.

https://github.com/philpagel/debian-headless

It is possible but I wouldn’t do it. Too much effort for too little result.

Just plug your main monitor / keyboard into the server, run the setup and don’t install a DE. Afterwards login, enable SSH, unplug the monitor and do whatever you need over SSH.

Let’s face it, you’ll have to do this procedure once every xyz years, there’s no point in complicating this stuff. Also depending on your motherboard you may or may not be able to boot into the installer without a screen / keyboard attached. Another option is to install the OS in another computer and the move the hard drive to the target server - this is all fine until you run into UEFI security or another detail and it doesn’t boot your OS.

Buy a keyboard and monitor

I would suggest, unless you have a very unusual situation, that you’re going to have an easier time of it with a keyboard and display.

If your computer can do HDMI out, you can use a television as display.

In all seriousness, unless this is some kind of super-exotic situation (like, you’re on a sailboat in the middle of the Pacific and are suddenly needing to set up a Debian server) I would probably get an inexpensive USB keyboard to keep around. Even if you don’t normally need it (like, you use a laptop or something) there are a number of situations that it solves, like “one of my laptop keys has just stopped working” or “I actually need to work on some kind of computer that doesn’t have an integrated keyboard”.

kagis

https://www.amazon.com/sgmedila-Waterproof-Foldable-Flexible-Dustproof/dp/B0CXTHH7QS/

That’s not gonna be a very pleasant typing experience, but it’s under $4 for two, if you’re determined to spend as little as possible.

If you can’t get access to a television, here’s a small, 640x480 USB/HDMI display under $50:

https://www.amazon.com/Capacitive-Compatible-Raspberry-Resolution-Interface/dp/B0CFJDTM5X/

I’d probably get a larger display, maybe used – I mean, maybe you think that you’re never gonna need to look at a computer’s output again, but you might find yourself troubleshooting a machine like this one, and 640x480 is a kind of significant limitation – but that’s at least a baseline.

If you specifically don’t want a keyboard, and if you have some other device with a display and text input and USB (well, or serial) support, I’d bet that the Debian installer can probably handle an RS-232 serial console install.

kagis

Yup.

https://p5r.uk/blog/2020/instaling-debian-over-serial-console.html

But I’m guessing that you don’t have the serial hardware. Having a USB-to-serial adapter is another thing that I keep one of around because every now and then I need to work on headless devices that have a serial interface, but I’ll concede that the serial port is getting pretty elderly.

I’d probably get a USB-to-serial male and USB-to-serial female adapter if neither end has an existing serial port (which these days, with desktop hardware, may be very possible). Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/OIKWAN-Adapter-Converter-Compatible-Windows/dp/B0BL1MRV6H/

and

https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Adapter-Chipset-Compatible-Windows/dp/B0CT8MRT5B/

But then you have to be sure that you can get your machine to boot into the Debian install media. On machines that are designed to be run headless, routers and such, it’s common for the BIOS to support a serial interface. On desktop machines…not so much. So if it’s already configured to boot off USB, that may be fine, but if it’s not, well…

Debian also has a fully-automated installer, as long as you can set your machine up to boot into it without a keyboard or display:

https://wiki.debian.org/FAI

That kind of thing is normally more used to set up VMs or manufacture hardware.

I would be very careful with that thing and probably wipe it after you use it, since it’s gonna be a USB key that wipes computers if you reboot and they’re set to boot off USB.

It almost certainly isn’t a great fit for your use case – like, the time you’re probably going to expend setting it up isn’t going to be worth whatever you’d save spending on hardware – but mentioning it for completeness.

PXE boot? It must be enable in the bios already. Then you could prep a image and deploy it that way.

Usually I want to see the BIOS settings at least once. So that’s enough reason to carry a keyboard + monitor there.

Otherwise that network boot option with a TFTP server comes to my mind. But I have never tried it on a new, empty machine.

My go-to solution is to use a vm and pass it raw access to the os disk on my normal desktop. Then I just put the disk into the server.

The traditional way is to use a serial console from another device.

If you really, really, really don’t want to buy a keyboard and monitor, you can buy a USB KVM console, but it’ll likely cost more. Something like this: https://www.startech.com/en-us/server-management/notecons01

Can you remove the boot disk?

Ipmi interface?

Not sure about debian, but the archlinux iso has ssh on per default, so if you have no other bootable drives in your server other than the usb with the iso, just fire it up and try to connect to it via ssh.