Ability to specify ks.cfg dynamically for RHEL7 static builds?

Spike White spikewhitetx at gmail.com
Wed Sep 2 16:51:16 UTC 2015


All,

As you know, in RHEL7 the anaconda was totally re-written.  I understand
why -- apparently the old anaconda was held together with spit and bailing
wire.

But for static builds, there were several nice features that missing in the
new anaconda.

Today, I'm asking about specifying your ks.cfg dynamically during your
build.

Previously in RHEL5 or RHEL6, when doing static builds, the server
provisioners would load up 7 - 10 ks.cfg files on their virtual USB key.
Name them ks-hostname1.cfg, ks-hostname2.cfg, etc.

Then they'd attach this virtual USB key as a virtual disk to their virtual
consoles (DRACs).  The USB boot media specifies "ks.cfg" file as their
ks.cfg file.  Since the boot media didn't find that file on the USB key,
it'd throw up a prompt requesting the name of the ks.cfg file.

The prompt would have something like:

/dev/sdd1:/ks.cfg

And you'd overwrite that to be:

/dev/sdd1:/ks-hostname1.cfg

Then the build would then proceed unattended.  By doing that, they could
have one boot media copy per 10 - 20 builds.

Now with RHEL7 and the new anaconda, all that is gone.  If it doesn't find
a file with the expected name, it no longer throws up a prompt.

For static builds, they have to generate a boot media per new build.  They
have to drop down the ks.cfg file for this new server and call it "ks.cfg".


That is, we specify in our initrd line:
    inst.ks=hd:LABEL=MINIBOOT:/ks.cfg

If it doesn't find this, it bails.  Is there a way to pop up a menu.
Something like:

   inst.ks=hd:LABEL=MINIBOOT:/ask  ???

I can't specify the inst.ks as so on a static build:
   inst.ks=http://webserver/ks-ip

Because (on a static build) the server has to know its IP address, netmask,
gateway and NIC device before it brings up the network.

Spike
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