Suggestions for a better kickstart infrastructure

[Mukarram Syed]

Hi Bryan.

I didn't know that you could have submenus in pxelinux.  Thanks for the
info.
However I am more interesting in implementing Cobbler/Koan/Puppet and I am
reading the docs on how to implement.

Thanks much for the feedback.

# mukarram

-----Original Message-----
From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bryan J Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 1:41 PM
To: Discussion list about Kickstart
Subject: Re: Suggestions for a better kickstart infrastructure

On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 13:28 -0700, Mukarram Syed wrote:
> We have been using this Kickstart infrastructure for about a year and
> a half now and it's been serving our purpose, but the menus have
> become a lot larger than it was and now when I pxeboot the client the
> menu scrolls off the screen and there is no way to do a
> page-up/page-down to see what's on top/bottom.

This is clearly a PXELinux configuration detail, not so much a Kickstart
one.  Is there any reason why you're not using it's option for nested
menus?  PXELinux has had that option for a long time, and some of the
latest versions improve it much better.

> We have tried to trim down the menu but now since our infrastructure
> has gotten a lot larger it's difficult.  Then when we want to have
> both EL4 and EL5 it would be difficult as well.

Again, is there any reason you can't use nested menus in PXELinux?
You can put your EL4 entries in one file, EL5 in another, utilities in
yet another, etc... and have the "default" be the top menu that goes
into each.

Again, this has little to do with Kickstart, and more to do with
PXELinux -- or whatever tool you're using to set it up.  I've even used
nexted PXELinux menus for Solaris Jumpstart and Windows PE as well.

> I have heard of "cobbler" but I would like some suggestions as to
> which is the best alternative to this menu based Kickstart that I am
> using here.

Cobbler (including Koan) is an advanced provisioning tool.  If you're
building an infrastructure, it's basically the bomb (i.e., learn it).
It's one of Red Hat's emerging technologies.

> Also this Kickstart infrastructure that I have here seems to be a
> basic one and we are ready to explore some advanced methods of
> Kickstarting our servers

Specifics?

Red Hat has many emerging technologies (ET).  Cobbler/Koan for
provisioning, Puppet for configuration management, etc...  If you're
building an infrastructure, it's very useful to do so.




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Bryan J Smith - Senior Consultant - Red Hat GPS SE US
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