Manual network config, fetch tcp/ip setup from stage1 in stage2

[Michael DeHaan]

On 07/30/2009 06:03 AM, Erling Ringen Elvsrud wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 5:53 PM, Kyle Powell<kpowell at redhat.com>  wrote:
> [...]
>    
>> Absolutely, and you're on the right track. You can %include a file generated
>> with a %pre script in your kickstart. Simply have a pre script that generates a
>> file containing the network line (network --device ethx --bootproto static
>> [--noipv6] --ip x.x.x.x --netmask x.x.x.x --gateway x.x.x.x --nameserver
>> x.x.x.x[,x.x.x.x] [--hostname %s]) then use a %include statement to add the
>> contents of the file to the kickstart. You may be able to simply parse the
>> contents of /tmp/netinfo or the output of ifconfig, or you may need to resort to
>> python (isys.getIPAddress). Incidentally, you could also avoid having to enter
>> the info for stage 1 by passing it as command line parameters (ip=, netmask=,
>> etc...). If you do this you could parse /proc/cmdline for the info.
>>      
>
> Thanks for your reply. I did not mention that I kickstart via
> Satellite Server in the first post, but it might be relevant. I have
> retried a kickstart and captured screenshots to make it easier to
> understand what I have done.
>
> Here is a quick and dirty description of the process:
>
> http://www.reisesakte.info/anaconda/
>
> The problem is that when I kickstart via Satellite Server the network
> configuration is repeated
> twice even before Anaconda reaches stage2 as far as I understand. So
> %prescript is not
> executed early enough. It is probably common to use DHCP/PXE which
> would avoid the multiple configurations before stage2 I suppose, but
> at my site it is quite complex to get such a setup and I prefer to use
> CD-boot if possible.
>
> Note that the install session documented works, but is a bit
> cumbersome. I hope to be able to polish the install routines more so
> my users can perform installation themselves. For instance VMware
> administrators. Supplying ip config on the kernel options might work,
> but I would prefer nice dialog interfaces.
>
> Any suggestions for how to best kickstart systems from satellite
> server from a custom boot-iso are welcome.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Erling
>
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>    

Using "cobbler buildiso" to create a boot CD with all of your systems on 
it would work for the above.

You just have to pick what system you are installing from the menu at 
boot time and the install would be fully-automatic from there.

This requires cobbler, though Satellite 5.3 will have it embedded 
(making this a supported feature).  Until then  you'll have to stand up 
a cobbler box and just have those systems register to Satellite in %post 
(by calling rhnreg_ks).

We've also done some work in the past doing similar with a live CD (so 
you don't have to reburn the ISO when you add systems), but this needs 
some attention to get it working again.

Regardless, this is nice because the kickstarts are sourced from the 
boot server, so the only thing that is really on the CD (burnt in) are 
the install kernels/initrds and kernel arguments.   So you can change 
the kickstarts without reburning the CDs.

(Now if you have a /lot/ of systems, this is where we should really 
revive the PXE-simulating live CD, because then we can look up the 
network info via the MAC address.)

--Michael
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