From Brandon.Ess at atk.com Mon Nov 3 15:49:21 2014 From: Brandon.Ess at atk.com (Ess, Brandon) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2014 15:49:21 +0000 Subject: RHEL 5/6/7 Kickstart Options In-Reply-To: References: <801C33F0E4A1B8418D4A213ED77C1B1F37F7E81D@mn05svcwem002.atk.com> Message-ID: <801C33F0E4A1B8418D4A213ED77C1B1F37F7F555@mn05svcwem002.atk.com> Pushpendra, Thanks for the response. After rereading the documentation I see how it says where to put the ?optional parameter and it?s not at %packages. -Brandon From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Mr. Pushpendra Chavan Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 3:47 PM To: Discussion list about Kickstart Subject: Re: RHEL 5/6/7 Kickstart Options Hello Brandon, You are actually doing it wrong. You should try the following way. %packages @group1 @group2 --nodefaults @group3 --optional package1 package2 -package3 The option --optional shall be used with the package group not with %packages section. The same is available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6[1] and 7[2] as well. A link[3] from Fedora Documentation also explains about it. [1] https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/Installation_Guide/index.html#s1-kickstart2-packageselection? ?[2] https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Installation_Guide/sect-kickstart-syntax.html#sect-kickstart-packages? ?[3] https://fedorahosted.org/revisor/wiki/KickstartPackageSelection? ?Regards,? ?Pushp? ?? ?endra? On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 2:18 AM, Ess, Brandon > wrote: Hello, I?m working on Kickstart scripts targeted towards RHEL 5/6/7 and I would like to make them all as portable and reusable as possible. I understand some options and flags were added in newer releases of Anaconda but I cannot find documentation stating which options were added in which Anaconda version. A ?works with RHEL {version}? would also help. My current question is this, for package selection I would like to also install optional packages using the --optional parameter at %packages --optional but for a RHEL6 installs Anaconda throws the error ?no such option: --optional? Is the --optional parameter not available for RHEL6 installs? ###################### # Package Selection # ###################### #Core Packages %packages --optional @core @base @Compatibility libraries @Desktop @Development tools @General Purpose Desktop @Server Platform Development @X Window System ntp Thanks, Brandon _______________________________________________ Kickstart-list mailing list Kickstart-list at redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spikewhitetx at gmail.com Tue Nov 4 02:21:11 2014 From: spikewhitetx at gmail.com (Spike White) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2014 20:21:11 -0600 Subject: RHEL 5/6/7 Kickstart Options (Ess, Brandon) Message-ID: Brandon, Also, the command "ksverdiff" displays the differences in kickstart syntax. You use it like so: ksverdiff --from RHEL6 --to RHEL7 That's helpful to know what kickstart syntax options were added when. Spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Brandon.Ess at atk.com Tue Nov 4 22:16:21 2014 From: Brandon.Ess at atk.com (Ess, Brandon) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2014 22:16:21 +0000 Subject: RHEL 5/6/7 Kickstart Options (Ess, Brandon) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <801C33F0E4A1B8418D4A213ED77C1B1F37F80279@mn05svcwem002.atk.com> Spike, That?s a great utility I?ll have to add to my toolbox. Thanks! -Brandon From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Spike White Sent: Monday, November 03, 2014 6:21 PM To: kickstart-list at redhat.com Subject: RE: RHEL 5/6/7 Kickstart Options (Ess, Brandon) Brandon, Also, the command "ksverdiff" displays the differences in kickstart syntax. You use it like so: ksverdiff --from RHEL6 --to RHEL7 That's helpful to know what kickstart syntax options were added when. Spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gczarcinski at ec.rr.com Sat Nov 8 19:59:20 2014 From: gczarcinski at ec.rr.com (Gene Czarcinski) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 14:59:20 -0500 Subject: btrfs and kickstart re-installs Message-ID: <545E7618.6010900@ec.rr.com> In general, kickstart has good support for installing onto btrfs subvolumes. However, there is one case that has a small problem: re-installing onto an existing subvol rootfs and/or /boot. To do an install, anaconda requires that the rootfs and /boot be "freshly formatted." For regular partitions and LVMlv, this presents no problem, just reformat the partition or LVMlv. On the other hand, a btrfs subvolume more closely resembles a directory than a partition and how do you re-format a directory? ... well, by deleting it and then re-defining it. I can easily do this when I do a regular gui install but kickstart is another matter. I proposed an update to anaconda/pykickstaert to add the "--reclaim" option for the btrfs command. This was rejected by anaconda developers because it did not fit with anaconda architecture (my words). An alternative was proposed to use clearpart to delete the subvolume by referring to the subvolume by it unique UUID. I do not find this useful because I cannot rerun a kickstart install without changing the kickstart file (each run will involve a different UUID). I do not want to carry my local modification so I came up with an alternative that requires no modification, works, and works if re-run without changing the kickstart file. Solution: I use a %pre section to delete the subvolume. Given a system with /boot on a ext4 partition and an existing btrfs volume supporting root6 and home subvolumes, it would look something like: ############### clearpart --none ... part swap --fstype=swap --noformat --onpart=UUID=a3b0c2ad-88c8-4d6d-876c-7c52881ab854 #part /boot --fstype=ext4 --onpart=sda4 #part /boot --fstype=ext4 --onpart=sda5 part /boot --fstype=ext4 --onpart=sda6 #part /boot --fstype=ext4 --onpart=sda7 part btrfs.10 --fstype=btrfs --noformat --label=ten --onpart=UUID=0f0f82cb-ed27-4468-a18c-64a877b64329 btrfs / --subvol --name=root6 ten btrfs /var --subvol --name=var6 ten btrfs /home --subvol --name=home --noformat ten ... %pre --log=/tmp/pre-install.log echo "manage the btrfs subvolumes" mkdir /mnt/btrfsvol mount UUID=0f0f82cb-ed27-4468-a18c-64a877b64329 /mnt/btrfsvol btrfs subvol list /mnt/btrfsvol btrfs subvol delete /mnt/btrfsvol/root6 btrfs subvol delete /mnt/btrfsvol/var6 btrfs subvol list /mnt/btrfsvol umount /mnt/btrfsvol rmdir /mnt/btrfsvol %end %post --nochroot --log=/mnt/sysimage/root/post-install.log cp -v /tmp/pre-install.log /mnt/sysimage/root %end ############# The first time this is run, the "btrfs subvol delete" will produce errors. Thereafter, reruns will delete the subvols so they can be re-installed. Note: Besides this mailing list, this might be good information to add to the kickstart documentation. Gene -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gczarcinski at ec.rr.com Sun Nov 9 16:15:27 2014 From: gczarcinski at ec.rr.com (Gene Czarcinski) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 11:15:27 -0500 Subject: A new way to install Fedora Message-ID: <545F931F.3060205@ec.rr.com> While not exactly new I have not seen this described elsewhere. First, some background: For years I have been using kickstart to perform installs on both real hardware and virtual systems. I found that a kickstart install allowed me to defines the parameters before the install and minimize the human error that would occur in a regular gui install. The kickstart install also allowed me to define the exact set of packages I wanted for that system. Another factor are my "rules" for installation / backup / recovery: * Rule 0: never, ever install over a working/current system just to install the "next release" ... do not do upgrades but fresh installs into different partitions/subvolumes. This means that all my systems are multiboot. In fact, I generally have predefined partitioning for last release, current release, new release and test release. * Rule 1: Separate all user data from the system/application software. Backup all user data early and often. * Rule 2: Recovery of user data is to restore it from backups. * Rule 3: To recover the system and application software, do a fresh install. * Rule 4: You do not want to test the recovery process when you really need it because of a hardware failure. So, occasionally test performing a full system, application, and user data recovery/restore. And then the new approach; Prior to Fedora 21, I have been using a GA DVD and doing basically a netinstall or creating my own DVD based on everything plus updates repos which included all of the basic packages I wanted installed. With product-ized Fedora 21 and some rethinking, I realized that a better approach would be to use a live install. A live install not only installs faster than the equivalent DVD or netinstall but also fixes the release/version for each package installed to a known "good" values. So, we are going to switch to using live installs. The first thing that occurs to me is how I can invoke kickstart from liveinst. I found that anaconda developers really, really do not want to support kickstart from liveinst! However, while investigate that I found that turning the question around is doable and supported: doing a kickstart install which installs a live image. For my kickstart reference, I use http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Kickstart and the kickstart command of interest is: |liveimg --url= [--proxy=] [--checksum=] [--noverifyssl]| where --url= and can be --url=http:// or --url=file:/// The squashfs.img is copied from the LiveOS directory of a livecd iso and should be renamed something meaningful to differentiate between different live installs (e.g., F21-Live-Ws-Beta-4.img). The simple case which works now is to put the kickstart file and the renamed squashfs.img file on a webserver. Boot up a "good" netintall and specify inst.ks=http://. That kickstart file includes liveimg --url=http:// Done! Now that we have a basic kickstart plus liveimg install, there are some additional opportunities. 1. You can create you own "nonproduct" (semi-product) liveimg using livecd-creator and a kickstart file modified to include the set of packages you want installed. Note that you can use the same setup described here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_create_a_Fedora_install_ISO_for_testing https://fedorahosted.org/pungi/wiki/PungiDocs/RunningPungi to run livecd-creator under mock. Once the livecd iso has been created, mount it and copy out the LiveOS/squashfs.img file. Creating your own livecd has the additional advantage of being able to include local updates. In my case, this includes my updated grubby supporting /boot on btrfs [currently targeted for Fedora 22]. 2. Since many/most computers these days are able to boot of a usb-stick, you can put the netinstall on a stick and include some or all of the kickstart and squashfs.img files too. In fact, you can put multiple kickstart files for different systems and multiple squashfs.img files for different LiveOS/squashfs.img files on that same usb-stick so that you are network independent. The command to specify getting the squashfs.img frle from the usr-stack is: liveimg --url=*file:///run/install/repo/* For example: liveimg --url=file:///run/install/repo/payload/F21-Live-Ws-Beta-4.img *Some gotchas*: 1. While the network (liveimg --url=http://) currently works, there is a bugfix for anaconda which is needed for file:/// to work. See: https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2014-November/014500.html https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2014-November/014501.html https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2014-November/014513.html I have this anaconda updates image for the Beta: http://czarc.org/fedora/updates/anaconda-21.48.13-1d1-updates.img 2. To use a usb-stick with virt-manager, you may need to patch it with the update: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1146297 This patch applies to the fedora-virt-preview repo for Fedora 20. Please feel free to comment, suggest, or add to this ... it is a work in progress. Gene -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Stephan.Kokkot at t-systems.com Fri Nov 14 12:56:48 2014 From: Stephan.Kokkot at t-systems.com (Stephan.Kokkot at t-systems.com) Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 13:56:48 +0100 Subject: unsubscrite Message-ID: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lists at alteeve.ca Fri Nov 14 14:37:08 2014 From: lists at alteeve.ca (Digimer) Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 09:37:08 -0500 Subject: unsubscrite In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54661394.2030502@alteeve.ca> Please follow the link below to unsubscribe: On 14/11/14 07:56 AM, Stephan.Kokkot at t-systems.com wrote: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list cheers -- Digimer Papers and Projects: https://alteeve.ca/w/ What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without access to education? From gczarcinski at ec.rr.com Sun Nov 16 14:30:31 2014 From: gczarcinski at ec.rr.com (Gene Czarcinski) Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 09:30:31 -0500 Subject: good info about kickstart, btrfs and Live Install Message-ID: <5468B507.8000207@ec.rr.com> Here are a couple of small writeups which may interest kickstart users. First, using a %pre section to delete an existing rootfs subvolume so that the name and disk space can be reusued: http://czarc.org/KickstartReinstallsWithBtrfs.html The second one concerns doing a kickstart install to install a Fedora Live Image: http://czarc.org/KickstartingFedoraLiveInstall.html Gene