Kickstart via PXE/NFS

SSTinsley at upsfreight.com SSTinsley at upsfreight.com
Mon May 14 13:19:55 UTC 2007


I am attempting to install RHEL ES V4 U5 on a Dell 2950 server. I am using 
a Sun server as the DHCP/TFTP/NFS server supplying all data to complete 
the install. I am able to start the PXE boot. The Dell server is able to 
download the pxelinux image and also read the pxelinux.cfg file. Here is 
the cfg file I am using.

# Perform a local boot by default
default installauto
# Always prompt
prompt 1
# Display the bootup message
display pxeboot.msg
# Boot automatically after 30 seconds in tenths of a second
timeout 300
label local
        localboot 0
label rescue
       ipappend 2
       kernel rhel_v4/vmlinuz
       append initrd=rhel_v4/initrd.img rescue
label installauto
        ipappend 2
        kernel rhel_v4/vmlinuz
        append initrd=rhel_v4/initrd.img 
ks=nfs:10.1.1.253:/export/redhat/ks_rhel_v4.cfg ksdevice=bootif

The kernel image loads from the server via tftp. The initial blue startup 
screen appears at the start of installation. That is where things start to 
go wrong.

First, even though I have designated KS to use the boot interfaces in the 
cfg file, I still get an interface selection screen at the start of the 
install. Why is the selection necessary? Why is the iterface not being set 
from the hsdevice option in the CFG file?

Second, after selecting the interface, I switch to virt console 2 and see 
the message that the install is attemting to get the ks_rhel_v4.cfg file 
and the nfs URL is displayed. At the time this is happening I have a 
network snoop at the Sun server. There is no NFS traffic showing up from 
the Dell. I am snooping based on the Dell's MAC address. The output on the 
virt. console indicates that the cfg file cannot be loaded. The network 
interface is operable on the Dell. I can ping the configured address from 
the Sun DHCP server. I can also boot the Dell in rescue more and NFS mount 
the directory that contains the cfg file and also the directory that 
contains the operating system image. Any ideas why this installation will 
not complete?

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