static network configuration ask

[Michael DeHaan]

Kit Stube wrote:
> Cobbler looks cool. Kinda like a front end for pxelinux and isc 
> dhcpd?  The problem we have is we don't want to have to look up the 
> mac address for a host in order to configure it.   Cobbler seems to 
> rely on that.

Nah, you don't :)  At least not in newer versions ...

Starting with 0.6.x (0.6.1 is out today -- I recommend installing that), 
you can name a system anything arbitrarily.   If  you know the MAC 
address, it helps to use that so we can assign a specific kickstart -- 
you can also use the ip if you know that instead.   Otherwise you can 
pick a specific profile and just assign that to be the "default" for all 
PXE booting systems.  You can also use it to create a PXE menu, so you 
can walk up to a machine while it's booting, type "menu", and pick what 
you want.

>
> Currently we have our dhcp server on an install network dump anyone 
> that netboots on that network to a default pxelinux menu.  That 
> default menu allows a person to chose an os to install.  Chosing one 
> kicks them into one of several different default kickstart files.   If 
> I could get kickstart to ask for static network information like it 
> would if I was installing from CD, I would be done.

I should have read further before typing.    Yeah, we can do that :)

The MAC address way of assigning the static info works really really 
well though, if you can start doing it.  I like kickstarts to be fully 
interactive because I can start them and not have to baby-sit.   Plus 
mapping a system to a new profile is as easy as:

cobbler edit --name=<MAC> --profile=<newprofile>

--Michael


>
>
> On 8/30/07, *Riggs, Ben* <rigg0022 at umn.edu <mailto:rigg0022 at umn.edu>> 
> wrote:
>
>     Check out http://cobbler.et.redhat.com  It's made our life here
>     tons easier.
>
>     Ben
>
>     Kit Stube wrote:
>     > Is there an option that will allow me to automate everything in
>     > kickstart except just the network portion so that I can have the
>     same
>     > kickstart config for a bunch of clustered hosts but input the
>     network
>     > information myself?
>     >
>     > The reason I ask is because I would like to automate a lot of other
>     > stuff in %post  or on first boot but need networking to be set up
>     > properly by the time that stuff runs or it will screw all of
>     that up.
>     >
>     > Thanks in advance
>     > Kit Stube
>     >
>     >
>     >
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