[et-mgmt-tools] Re: Cobbler 0.4.0 released

[Michael DeHaan]

Michael DeHaan wrote:
> Michael DeHaan wrote:
>> Michael DeHaan wrote:
>>> Cobbler 0.4.0 is out.   RPMs are already up on et.redhat.com and 
>>> will be pushed out to the mirrors shortly.
>>>
>>> The main feature for this release is support for PXE menus.   For 
>>> those wanting to use PXE menus, the best thing to do is set all 
>>> machines in your datacenter/lab to "PXE first".    To access the PXE 
>>> menu, type "menu" at the prompt, otherwise cobbler will fall through 
>>> to local boot in 20 seconds.   If you have a cobbler definition made 
>>> for a system, that system will bypass the PXE menu.   This is true 
>>> whether you have a certain MAC set to a specific profile (ex:  
>>> cobbler system add --name=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF ...) or if you have a 
>>> "default" system entry (cobbler system add --name=default 
>>> --profile=blah).    If you have a default system entry and want to 
>>> use the new menus, just run "cobbler system delete --name=default" 
>>> and then "cobbler sync".   Presto, you've got PXE menus.   This is 
>>> also documented in the manpage.
>>>
>>> As mentioned previously on the list, I'm also reinstating the usage 
>>> of Cheetah for vastly improved kickstart templating.   See 
>>> http://www.cheetahtemplate.org/learn for more information.   
>>> Basically the existing kickstart templating is now improved with the 
>>> ability to do if-statements and the like.  Cobbler will allow either 
>>> TEMPLATE::foo or $foo for kickstart templating substitution.   The 
>>> one thing I've found is that a macro such as $(list-hard-drives) 
>>> does need to be escaped to \$(list-hard-drives) in kickstart 
>>> files.   Things like passwords (crypted passwords often contain "$") 
>>> don't need to be escaped and are otherwise fine.  If you do escape 
>>> them though, it won't hurt.   The new /etc/cobbler/kickstart* files 
>>> have them escaped.   If you have your own kickstart files, it would 
>>> be worth checking for any dollarsigns that were unescaped, or you 
>>> might see an error next time you run "cobbler sync".
>>>
>>> This release also no longer requires running "cobbler sync" after 
>>> "profile add" or "system add" commands as much as cobbler used 
>>> to.    Editing configuration files behind the scenes, or wanting to 
>>> regenerate PXE menus will, however, still require running "cobbler 
>>> sync".   The features made to minimize the need for sync were mainly 
>>> done for applications using cobbler as a provisioning library and 
>>> those users that occasionally forget to run sync and post questions 
>>> to the list :) I've also incorporated some random minor bugfixes, 
>>> including passing "--basedir" to createrepo and manpage fixes 
>>> related to the "--local-filename" option as mentioned last week.
>>>
>>> Questions?  Comments?   Fire away.
>>>
>>> --Michael
>>>
>> RHEL4/Centos users:
>>
>> Apparently menu.c32 (required for PXE menus) isn't provided by the 
>> syslinux package on RHEL4... I'll probably end up bundling it and 
>> storing it in /var/lib/cobbler.  For now, you can copy it yourself to 
>> /usr/lib/syslinux/menu.c32 and things will work fine.  I'll release a 
>> 0.4.1 fix that will bundle this file shortly.
>>
>>
>
> Apparently bundling Cheetah is causing some evil problems on older 
> systems, I'm going to back that bit out and add it as a Requires: in 
> the RPM.    This will be released shortly as 0.4.1.
>
> RHEL4/Centos users ca get Cheetah here:  
> http://www.python.org/pyvault/centos-4-i386/repodata/repoview/python-cheetah-0-0.9.18-1.el4.pyv.html 
> .. actually I think Centos already has it in the default repo(s) ... 
> correct me if I'm wrong.
>
> --Michael
>
The Cheetah changes are fixed and pushed, along with the inclusion of 
the menu.c32 file.
RHEL4 users can satisfy the Cheetah requirements by doing the following:

wget 
http://www.python.org/pyvault/centos-4-i386/python23-cheetah-0.9.18-1.el4.pyv.i386.rpm
wget 
http://www.python.org/pyvault/centos-4-i386/python-cheetah-0-0.9.18-1.el4.pyv.rpm
rpm -i python*cheetah*.rpm --nodeps

Fedora/Centos users can just let yum suck in the dependencies. 

I'll update this info and put it on the website for future reference.

Remember to change any "$(foo)" macros code in your kickstart files to 
"\$(foo)" or you _will_ get errors during cobbler sync.  

--Michael