[et-mgmt-tools] RHEL4 Cobbler Setup

[Michael DeHaan]

Michael DeHaan wrote:
> Matt S Unix Administrator wrote:
>> How might one import RHEL 4 into cobbler from the installation media.
>> Such that the installation can be completed over the network. I've got a
>> functional cobbler install already with several distributions.
>>
>>
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>>   
> All you have to do is copy over the files from each CD into a 
> directory somewhere on your cobbler server.  You'll want to preserve 
> the directory layout that was on the CD.  
> A good place to put this tree is 
> /var/lib/cobbler/localmirror/rhel4$type$arch, though if you don't want 
> to take up space in /var, you could just create a symlink to that 
> point and put the files somewhere else.   (Note:  If not running 
> Cobbler 0.3.6, this would require manually configuring Apache to 
> follow symlinks, 0.3.5 sets this up for you automatically).   The name 
> "localmirror" is special, if you name it something else, cobbler will 
> probably delete it for you, thinking it's content that shouldn't live 
> in /var/lib/cobbler.
>
> These files really don't have to be on the cobbler server, either.   
> In my setup, I just symlink a path to the kickstart trees that Red Hat 
> stores on NFS shares, i.e. /mnt/foo/something/RHEL4/AS/tree.    Samba 
> would technically work too if you are so inclined.
>
> With the content already accessible from /var/lib/cobbler, you just 
> use the following URL in your kickstart file:
>
> url --url=http://$server/cobbler/localmirror/RHEL4/AS/i386/tree
> (for cobbler 0.3.6, use "cobbler_track" instead of "cobbler" in the 
> URL if you want to use kickstart tracking)
>
> --Michael
>
>
>
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Sorry for the incomplete follow-up.   You asked about "import", which 
probably means how do I create cobbler distribution and profile entries 
in cobbler, as well as just how to do I get the kickstart tree copied over.

after doing the above to copy the kickstart tree, do the following.   
Your kernel/initrd paths might be slightly different:

cobbler distro add --name=rhel4asi386 
--kernel=/var/www/cobbler/localmirror/RHEL4/AS/i386/tree/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz 
--initrd=/var/www/cobbler/localmirror/RHEL4/AS/i386/tree/images/pxeboot/initrd.img

cobbler profile add --name=rhel4asi386foo --distro=rhel4asi386 
--kickstart=/path/to/kickstart.ks
(with the kickstart file of course including the URL as referenced above)

Adding a "import from ISO's" feature sounds like a good idea for future 
revisions.   
If anyone feeling creative wants to play around with action_import.py 
and add this feature and submit a patch, be my guest. 
If not, I'll put it in the queue.   It would be rather nice to have.

--Michael