[et-mgmt-tools] Re: Cobbler import --path weirdness

[Aaron Lippold]

Will do. Thanks for the help. So not using import but distro and
profile may eliminate this issue?

Question, one of the issues when using a mass storage device, like NFS
mounted NAS, is that we usually mount these things squash_root for
security and since we run cobbler as root, it can't write to the
destination.

What are your thoughts on using a 'cobbler' user and group, setting
the correct group permissions etc.

The issues I was having when using the NAS / NSF mounts was that the
import seemed to mess up the repodata xml files and an ugly python
error ensues. ( no repos left) The issue seems to be with walking the
file set after import.

I apologise, I don't have the error output.

Has anyone else run into similar issues when importing from a NFS
source or the like?

Aaron

On 4/23/07, Michael DeHaan <mdehaan at redhat.com> wrote:
> Aaron Lippold wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am having issues with the cobbler import --path=x stuff. I have an
> > NFS mounted NAS device that I store all my expanded RHEL dvds on for
> > ks installs. I have a mount point on the cobbler server that will
> > allow me to have a bit faster access to the data than my the main
> > server disk will allow and I want to take advantage of it. When I do a
> > 'cobbler import --path=/path/to/stuff --mirror-name=glorp' as the man
> > page suggests, it still copies the source files to
> > /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror. The man pages, if I understand, suggests
> > that it won't copy it over, but just point to this. Am I mistaken?
> >
> > I would assume that this case, i.e. mass storage, was the reason for
> > the --path option.
> The "--path" used to do the "no copy" thing you mentioned above, but it
> couldn't plug in the "tree" location in the kickstart automatically, and
> this was a source for much confusion on the lists.   To reduce that
> confusion, as well as to make "import" more automagical, "--path" now is
> just an alias for "--mirror".  I'll update the manpage if that's misleading.
>
> So, in more recent versions of cobbler, "import" always copies files
> over to /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror.   The reason for this is to ensure
> that the contents of those files are serveable for network installs --
> yes, nfs:// tree
> support does exist in kickstart, but this way cobbler doesn't need to
> understand all of the NFS parameters and mounts -- plus we know the
> files in question are local to cobbler.    What you can do is either:
>
> (A) make /var/www/repo_mirror be a symlink to storage on your NAS
> device, and then run import to load DVDs onto your NAS device.   Note
> that there can be weird issues with Apache serving off NFS symlinks,
> especially with SELinux, so this is probably not your best option.
>
> or
>
> (B)  use "cobbler distro add" and "cobbler profile add" and not
> "import", and then just set up your kickstart tree URLs manually in your
> kickstarts to point to the NAS device.   This will do exactly the same
> thing with just a little more work on your part.
>
> cobbler distro add --name=distroname --kernel=/mnt/nasdevice/.../vmlinuz
> --initrd=/mnt/nasdevice/..initrd.img --ksmeta="tree=nfs://magic/nfs/path"
> cobbler profile add --name=profilename --profile=distroname
> --kickstart=/path/to/kickstart
> cobbler sync
>
> FYI -- these types of questions are best posted to et-mgmt-tools so
> everyone can benefit from seeing the answers.
>
> --Michael
>
>