kickstart + flash drive + fc5

[Phil Meyer]

Gregory Machin wrote:
> Hi
> I can't seem to find any info on google for how to do and fc5
> install using a flash drive with a kickstart file on it.
> How do I do this as my machines dont have floppy drives .
> Many thanks
> -- 
> Gregory Machin
> gregory.machin at gmail.com <mailto:gregory.machin at gmail.com>
> www.linuxpro.co.za <http://www.linuxpro.co.za> 
If you can boot from USB, you can do both ...

Boot images such as those found on CDROMS do not like partitioning.  So 
you have to dedicate your flash drive to this purpose.  If you also want 
a custom ks.cfg on the flash drive then this is what you have to do:

Copy the boot.iso to /tmp
# cp boot.iso /tmp
Mount the FC5 boot.iso file like so:
# mount -o loop /tmp/boot.iso /mnt
# cd /mnt/isolinux
# vi isolinux.cfg

modify the line:
default linux
to read like:
default linux ks=CDROM:/ks.cfg

in the case of using a CDROM based boot image, and a USB ks,cfg file, 
this is the type of syntax you are looking at.  The anaconda/kickstart 
method uses a URL type specification for where to find things.  There 
should be a file on your FC5 box:
file:///usr/share/doc/anaconda-11.0.5/kickstart-docs.txt
that explains alot of this.
Your case might be:

ks=hd:sda1:/ks.cfg).



Now copy your custom kickstart script to the iso:

# cp /tmp/myks.cfg /mnt/isolinux/ks.cfg

# umount /mnt

If all went well, you have modified the boot.iso.  The biggest trick is 
getting it to fit!  If it doesn't, you have to build your own boot.iso.

THIS STEP WILL OVERWRITE THE CONTENTS ON THE DISK

# dd if=/tmp/boot.iso of=/dev/sda

This assumes that your flash is /dev/sda.  If it mounts automatically 
when you plug it in, unmout it first by right clicking the icon on your 
desktop before doing the dd command.
This also assumes that your flash is as large as the iso, but in this 
case we are talking about 7MB.  So you are likely safe.  This also 
assumes that you want to dedicate your flash drive to this purpose.

What I have done is buy a wallymart $5.00 special 16MB SD flash card for 
this, and use a usb card reader to boot the PC from.  That way I don't 
care about wasting a flash card for this. :)