Newbie Needs Help with Kickstart Fedora Installations

[Philip Rowlands]

On Fri, 14 May 2004, Gary Ford wrote:

>I need help with the following items:
>
>1. Is my scenario feasible?

Yes.

>2. So far, I've had no luck getting a Kickstart installation to run.
>The Apache server log shows that the ks.cfg file is being requested and
>sent, but the installer seems to ignore it and proceed with a
>completely interactive installation. I'm using the boot option "linux
>ks=http://192.168.0.1/Linux/ks.cfg". Do I need additional boot options?

What do the other VCs (virtual consoles) say? (Press Alt+F2, Alt+F3
etc.)

>3. If I add RPMs to the Fedora/RPMS directory, how does that affect
>files in Fedora/base? I understand "comps.xml" and have a tool on the
>Mac OS X box that can generate it and a Kickstart configuration file
>after "interviewing" the user to determine the packages that the user
>is likely to need. I do not understand the "hdlist", "hdlist2",
>"hdstg2.img", "netstg2.img", or "stage2.img" files, their roles in
>installation, and how to create them.

The .img files *are* the Redhat installer, aka Anaconda. The hdlist*
files are mapping files from a package name in comps.xml or the
kickstart file to real .rpm files in Fedora/RPMS. They're build by
genhdlist, and need to be rebuilt every time the contents of Fedora/RPMS
change.

>4. The RH9 documentation for an HTTP installation of Linux makes
>reference to the "installation tree". The only definition of that term
>I could find says it means the entire contents of all the installation
>CD-ROMs. That seems extreme (does the installer really need the DOS
>utilities or the boot diskette image file?). What does "installation
>tree" really mean?

It means the Fedora/base and Fedora/RPMS directories. Kickstarting
doesn't require dosutils, images, isolinux etc., but they're small and
sometimes useful to keep around.

>5. Is it okay to boot the Dell host from Fedora CD 1, or is there a
>better choice?

For kickstarts, you'll definitely want to boot from the same kernel and
initrd that the second-stage installer expects. In other words, if
installing FC1 (Fedora Core 1), boot from FC1.


Hope this helps,
Phil