HElp to create kickstart rhel5 dvd

[Wazir, Deborah]

Sorry for the typos - should be fixed below!  If I find any more, I'll update it on the blog post (http://www.deborahwazir.com)


Deborah Wazir
HP/Delphi Global Server Engineering
Email:  deborah.wazir at hp.com

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HOW TO CREATE CUSTOM BUILD ISO & DVD

Log in to server.  Be root.
Place source DVD in tray. (Source DVD is the RedHat install DVD).
Execute "mount" command to figure out path to source DVD.

# mount
(examine output to see what the path is)
(in my case, path is /media/RHEL_5.3 i386 DVD)

# cd /media/RHEL_5.3\ i386\ DVD
(the backslashes are to escape the spaces in the pathname)

# du -sh .
(see how much space will be necessary to recreate this DVD on the server hard drive)

# df -h
(examine output and select a filesystem on the hard drive that has sufficient space to recreate the DVD there)
(on my system, I selected /0b)

# mkdir /0b/iso_tree
(create a working directory on your selected filesystem)

# pwd
(make sure you are in the top-level of mounted DVD)

# tar cvf - . | (cd /0b/iso_tree; tar xvpf -)
(recreate the DVD on your hard drive - should take 10 minutes or less)

Validation Check:
# ls -a /0b/iso_tree
(make sure you see a listing for .discinfo file)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Customize:
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# cd /0b/iso_tree/isolinux
# mkdir EXTRAS

(In my case, I create this subdirectory because I've written some code in my custom ks.cfg file which will copy the contents of the EXTRAS subdirectory into a directory on the server, in the post-installation steps)
(We want to put the custom ks.cfg file in the ./isolinux directory, as the deployment guide I'm writing for work expects to find the ks.cfg file there.)
(In my case, I have these files on a USB stick which is attached to my server at the mount point /media/disk)

# cp /media/disk/ks.cfg /0b/iso_tree/isolinux/ks.cfg

# cp /media/disk/tools.tar.gz /0b/iso_tree/isolinux/EXTRAS/tools.tar.gz

Here you can make it interesting, because you can actually put multiple versions of ks.cfg here, and can pretty much name them what you want; later when you go to build a new server, you will specify the path to the ks.cfg file anyway.
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Make the custom ISO image file:
Decide what the ISO image will be called.  In my case, I decided to call it "RedHatLinux53-yyyymmdd.iso", where yyyymmdd represents the year, month, day that I'm creating the file.

# cd /0b/iso_tree

# mkdir /0b/new_iso

(Here you are creating another working directory to put your custom ISO file in - mine needed a little less than 4Gb)

Now you execute the "mkisofs" command to create the custom ISO file.  This command is all on one line.  You might want to put it in a small shell script and execute it that way to avoid typo errors.

# mkisofs -A "Red Hat Linux 5.3" -V "Red Hat Linux 5.3" -J -R -v -T -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o /0b/new_iso/RedHatLinux53-20090901.iso .

(PLEASE NOTE THE "." at the end of the command - this stands for "current directory", don't forget to put this at the end of the command!)
(Should take around 5 minutes to complete)

Validate:
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Mount the newly created ISO image on the loopback device so you can make sure it will work:

# mkdir /0b/mnt_iso

(here you are creating a mount point)

# mount -o loop /0b/new_iso/RedHatLinux5.3-20090901.iso /0b/mnt_iso

(make sure it mounts ok and you can find isolinux/ks.cfg and isolinux/EXTRAS/tools.tar.gz)

# umount /0b/mnt_iso
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Now at this point you want to write the ISO image to DVD.  Being pressed for time at work, I chose not to investigate the options for using the "cdrecord" command on my Linux server to do that.  Instead, I chose to put the ISO file on a USB stick and transfer it over to my PC, then use Roxio to burn a DVD from the ISO image.  So here are the instructions for doing that:

# cp /0b/new_iso/RedHatLinux5.3-20090901.iso /media/disk

(On a slow server, took around a half hour)

# eject /media/disk

Remove USB stick from server and attach to PC.
Use Roxio.  Use DVD-R, as DVD+R etc. has sometimes caused a problem.  Use option to "Burn Image".  Choose the option to "Verify".  (Takes about 20 minutes)

Test DVD:
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Place DVD in CD tray in the server you want to build.  It should boot from DVD.  At the Linux boot: prompt, type the command which will initiate the install, using the custom ks.cfg found at isolinux/ks.cfg.

ON my server, the path to the DVD is /dev/sda1, so this is the boot command I use:

boot: linux ks=sda1:/isolinux/ks.cfg

(NOTE: you don't have to type "boot:" that is the prompt you will see.)

If all goes well, the installation will carry on and you won't be prompted for anything.

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