Weird kickstart problem regarding not selecting the right cfg

[Michael Peterson]

On 8/17/10 9:26 AM, Ben wrote:
> We recently acquired four new machines (Sun X4270s).  As usual as I've
> done with dozens of other machines I constructed RHEL5 kickstart .cfg
> files for them and made additions to the syslinux.cfg of the form:
> 
> label ct-phy-dom01
>   kernel vmli5s64
>   append initrd=int5s64.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/ct-phy-dom01.cfg
> console=ttyS0,9600
> label ct-phy-dom02
>   kernel vmli5s64
>   append initrd=int5s64.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/ct-phy-dom02.cfg
> console=ttyS0,9600
<snip>
> # vmli5s64 = vmlinuz for RHEL5, server, 64bit
> # int5s64.img = initrd.img for RHEL5, server, 64bit
> # (note that the name of the initrd file must conform to 8.3 rules, just
> # like in DOS or it doesn't work!)
> 
<snip>
> No matter what I tried I could not get any of the other machines
> (ct-phy-dom02-04) to use their own cfg files until I started commenting
> out the lines of servers I wasn't building in syslinux.cfg.  Want to
> build ct-phy-dom02?  Comment out ct-phy-dom01's lines.  ct-phy-dom03? 
> Comment out ct-phy-dom01 _and_ ct-phy-dom02.  Etc.
> 
> Now, can anyone explain why?
> 
> Ben

As you note for the initrd.img filenames, the labels are "mangled" into
8.3 format as well, so all of your labels are effectively the same.

See http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX#LABEL_command

Michael
-- 
Michael A. Peterson, PhD.
IT Manager / HPC Systems Admin
Department of Chemistry
Duke University
919-660-1646

"PC" != "Windows"