[et-mgmt-tools] Re: cobbler check question

[Tom Diehl]

On Fri, 8 Dec 2006, Michael DeHaan wrote:

> Tom Diehl wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I am just starting to use cobbler and so far it is working well. One thing
>> I have noticed is that cobbler check gets confused by the fact that I have
>> "server_args -s /tftpboot" the xinetd config and tftpboot: /tftpboot/pxe
>> in /var/lib/cobbler/services.
>> 
>> I have a /tftpboot that looks something like this:
>> 
>> (rocky pts4) # ls -d /tftpboot/*
>> /tftpboot/cisco/ /tftpboot/pxe/
>> (rocky pts4) #
>> 
>> Is there a better way to do this or should I just continue to ignore the
>> cobbler error?
>> 
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
> The PXE components shouldn't work with the way you have it configured, so the 
> check result seems correct based on what information you've given so far.

But it is working here. Unless I do not understand what cobbler is supposed
to do and I am missing some key feature. Right now I have a test box that
I tell to pxe boot and modulo some error in the kickstart.cfg file, I come back
in about 30 minutes and I have a machine that is installed and configured.

Is there more to cobbler than that??

Below is the output of cobbler list cobbler check and the services file:

(rocky pts6) # cobbler list
defaults
kernel options  : append devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=16438 lang= ksdevice=link

distro 1        : fc6-x86_64
kernel          : /fc6/x86_64/os/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz
initrd          : /fc6/x86_64/os/images/pxeboot/initrd.img
kernel options  :
architecture    : x86
ks metadata     :


distro 2        : fc6-i386
kernel          : /fc6/i386/os/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz
initrd          : /fc6/i386/os/images/pxeboot/initrd.img
kernel options  :
architecture    : x86
ks metadata     :

profile 1       : tigger2-x86_64-ks
distro          : fc6-x86_64
kickstart       : /home/www/kickstart/tigger2-ks.cfg
kernel options  :
ks metadata     :
virt name        : tigger2-x86_64-ks
virt file size   :
virt ram         :
virt paravirt    :


profile 2       : tigger2-i386-ks
distro          : fc6-i386
kickstart       : /home/www/kickstart/tigger2-ks.cfg
kernel options  :
ks metadata     :
virt name        : tigger2-i386-ks
virt file size   :
virt ram         :
virt paravirt    :


profile 3       : fc6-x86_64-noks
distro          : fc6-x86_64
kickstart       : /etc/cobbler/default.ks
kernel options  :
ks metadata     :
virt name        : fc6-x86_64-noks
virt file size   :
virt ram         :
virt paravirt    :

system 1        : 00:0f:fe:44:51:b2
profile         : tigger2-i386-ks
kernel options  : noipv6
ks metadata     :
pxe address     :

(rocky pts6) #
(rocky pts6) # cobbler check
the following potential problems were detected:
#0: need to change field 'server_args' value to '-s /tftpboot/pxe' in file '/etc/xinetd.d/tftp'
(rocky pts6) #

--
bootloaders:
     ia64: /var/lib/cobbler/elilo-3.6-ia64.efi
     standard: /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.0
default_kickstart: /etc/cobbler/default.ks
dhcpd_bin: /usr/sbin/dhcpd
dhcpd_conf: /etc/dhcpd.conf
httpd_bin: /usr/sbin/httpd
kernel_options: append devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=16438 lang= ksdevice=link
koan_path: ''
manage_dhcp: 0
next_server: '192.168.0.16'
server: '192.168.0.16'
tftpboot: /tftpboot/pxe
tftpd_bin: /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
tftpd_conf: /etc/xinetd.d/tftp
webdir: /home/www/cobbler

>
> Explanation -- TFTP runs chroot, so your tftp root is configured as 
> "/tftpboot". However, you're telling cobbler to write files in 
> "/tftpboot/pxe", so files in pxelinux.cfg referencing "/images/blah" would be 
> looking in "/tftpboot/blah" on your filesystem when the files are actually 
> being stored in "/tftpboot/pxe/blah".

Well that does make sense, except now that I think about it, I have 
"filename "/pxe/pxelinux.0";" in my dhcpd.conf file. I had forgotten about that
as I set pxe booting up several years ago.

> Recent versions of cobbler do not delete contents of "/tftpboot" they do not 
> own when syncing, so if you set tftpboot in /var/lib/cobbler/settings back to 
> the value you are using in xinetd.d, it should be good to go. Cobbler will 
> write the files where it needs to write them relative to TFTP root, and 
> you're free to use the rest of the directory for other things. The reason the 
> tftpboot setting is there at all in settings is to accomodate for TFTP 
> installs that might not want to use the partition mounted on "/" for hosting 
> tftp content.
>
> FYI, The directories/items cobbler will modify in /tftpboot are:
>
> pxelinux.cfg (directory)
> images (directory)
> pxelinux.0 (file)
> elilo-3.6-ia64.efi (file)

To me, having the config files for multiple devices in the same directory is
ugly and if there are enough different devices it can be confusing.

Maybe it is just me but...

Thanks, for at least thinking about this and the quick response.

Regards,

-- 
Tom Diehl		tdiehl at rogueind.com		Spamtrap address mtd123 at rogueind.com