New to list and question

[Daniel Segall]

On 3/2/2006, "Patrick" <ks at puzzled.xs4all.nl> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>Last time I was on this list was iirc in 2002 so I'm sort of new to the
>list. Recently I setup a PXE/kickstart install system for a bunch of
>servers. Works very well (pxe/kickstart rocks!) but it is incomplete so
>I would like to iron out more details. Once the install is finished I
>would like to:
>
>* add extra firewall rules to /etc/sysconfig/iptables or replace it
>* change or replace some configs like /etc/ntp.conf, /etc/hosts
>* turn off a ton of unneeded services (chkconfig --level 2345 foo off)
>* turn off IPv6 in (iirc) /etc/modules.conf
>* turn off zerconf in /etc/sysconfig/network
>* install a bunch of updates
>* install some extra rpms
>
>I assume I should specify this in the %post section of the kickstart
>file but I don't know what the required syntax is. Any suggestions or
>docs how I go about this?
>
>Thanks and regards,
>Patrick
>
>_______________________________________________
>Kickstart-list mailing list
>Kickstart-list at redhat.com
>https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
>

Hi Patrick,

I do most of this type of stuff throuigh a shell script that gets called
in %post (you could do it all in %post as well, but I find it easier to
maintain a single script that can be called from any of my kickstart
configs, or even run standalone). I've found that the easiest way to do
things is to just create new files to replace the old, rather than
manually inserting things into them. For example, if you wanted to have
a certain set of iptables rules on all machines, you could just create
the rules file, and keep it on an NFS server, and have your %post grab
that file and replace the one in /etc/sysconfig. You can also run
interactive commands during post, so it would be possible to write
something that would prompt you for input. I use "dialog" for this,
but you could use anything.

Anyhow, this is how my %post looks:

%post
#%post --interpreter /bin/sh
exec < /dev/tty3 > /dev/tty3
chvt 3

cat <<EOF >>/etc/motd
#######################################
## KICKSTART STILL IN PROGRESS!!!!!! ##
#######################################
`cat /etc/redhat-release` - Installed `date`

EOF

echo " * Mounting our NFS share..."
mkdir /mnt/ks
mount -r -o nolock 10.1.1.1:/kickstart /mnt/ks

echo " * Copying config files from NFS..."
cp -a /mnt/ks/linux-postinstall.sh /root/
cp -a /mnt/ks/redhatconfig.tar.gz /root/

# Grab our gdm-conf
cp -a /mnt/ks/fedora-gdm.conf /root/

# Import the RHN GPG key
rpm --import /usr/share/rhn/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora

# Grab the NVIDIA driver installer in case we need it
cp -a /mnt/ks/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-7676-pkg1.run /root/

# Grab our yum.conf
cp -f /mnt/ks/yum.conf /etc/yum.conf

# Unmount the share & delete the mount point
umount /mnt/ks
rm -rf /mnt/ks

# Change our motd to a "normal" value
rm -f /etc/motd
cat <<EOF >>/etc/motd
`cat /etc/redhat-release` - Installed `date`

EOF

# Execute our post install
if [ -f /root/linux-postinstall.sh ]; then
        echo " * Executing Post-Install..."
        chmod +x /root/linux-postinstall.sh
else
        echo "Can't find linux-postinstall.sh."
fi

# We done.
echo " * Post-Install complete. System rebooting." >>/root/ks.log
echo " * Post-Install complete. System rebooting."
chvt 3
sleep 10
exit 0
#EOF


Hope that helps a bit.


-Dan