Monitoring kickstart install status

[Hugh Brown]

On 05/04/2011 09:42 AM, Chun Tat David Chu wrote:
> Hi Hugh,
>
> We have many machines that we will be building, so we are hoping to automate
> the process of monitoring the status of the OS.
>
> Spawning a script and monitoring 'install.log' is an option.  Another
> thought would be monitoring the anaconda.log.
>
> I notice the log prints the following....
> anaconda.log:21:22:31 INFO    : moving (1) to step partitionobjinit
> anaconda.log:21:22:32 INFO    : moving (1) to step autopartitionexecute
> anaconda.log:21:22:32 INFO    : moving (1) to step partitiondone
> anaconda.log:21:22:32 INFO    : moving (1) to step bootloadersetup
> anaconda.log:21:22:32 INFO    : moving (1) to step networkdevicecheck
> anaconda.log:21:22:32 INFO    : moving (1) to step reposetup
> anaconda.log:21:22:34 INFO    : moving (1) to step basepkgsel
> anaconda.log:21:22:35 INFO    : moving (1) to step postselection
> anaconda.log:21:22:44 INFO    : moving (1) to step install
> anaconda.log:21:22:44 INFO    : moving (1) to step enablefilesystems
> anaconda.log:21:23:48 INFO    : moving (1) to step migratefilesystems
> anaconda.log:21:23:48 INFO    : moving (1) to step setuptime
> anaconda.log:21:23:49 INFO    : moving (1) to step preinstallconfig
> anaconda.log:21:23:49 INFO    : moving (1) to step installpackages
> anaconda.log:21:25:57 INFO    : moving (1) to step postinstallconfig
> anaconda.log:21:25:57 INFO    : moving (1) to step writeconfig
> anaconda.log:21:25:57 INFO    : moving (1) to step firstboot
> anaconda.log:21:25:57 INFO    : moving (1) to step instbootloader
> anaconda.log:21:25:59 INFO    : moving (1) to step writeksconfig
> anaconda.log:21:25:59 INFO    : moving (1) to step writeregkey
> anaconda.log:21:25:59 INFO    : moving (1) to step setfilecon
> anaconda.log:21:25:59 INFO    : moving (1) to step copylogs
>
> It looks like if I monitor these steps then I might be able to get a better
> estimate of the installation progress.
>
> What do you think?  Any thought?
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
>


How fine grained do you want the reporting to be?  How long are your 
loads taking?  From the steps above, you are doing a quick load and the 
system takes about 3-4 minutes before it's done.  If all of your systems 
are going to be completed that quickly, then something in %post that 
does an "I'm done" would be sufficient.

Our systems take about 1-2 hours to load (lots of packages and then a 
number of customizations).  The bulk of our load time is spent in the 
package loading stage.  So, you could poll anaconda.log for when it 
starts to install packages. Then switch to the install.log to track how 
far along in the package installation you are.  Then switch back to 
anaconda.log for the final bits.

Ultimately, we don't need a progress meter for the loads.  So the "I'm 
done" is sufficient for us.  If it seems like it is taking too long or I 
need to watch a load carefully, I ssh in and check on it.

Hugh