network installation on KVM fails to parse the kickstart profile

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I'm trying to perform network installation to automate the deployment of KVM guests.

I'm able to use the following command line to install RHEL 7 guests without any problem. However, the same command line fails to parse the ks.cfg file when trying to install a RHEL 6 guest

virt-install \
-n myRHELVM1 \
--os-type=Linux \
--os-variant=rhel6 \
--ram=2048 \
--vcpus=2 \
--disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/disk1.qcow2 \
--graphics none \
--l http://x.x.x.x/rhel/6 \
--network bridge:br0
--extra-args "inst.ks=http://server/vm.ks.cfg"

In this case, the VM boots from the network but fails to proceed with the kickstart profile. Could someone help pls?

sa
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Responses

Petr Bokoc's picture Red Hat Active Contributor 200 points
28 July 2015 2:00 PM

Hi, I noticed you have a comma ("vm.ks,cfg") in the Kickstart's filename. Are you sure it's not a typo? Is that really the filename?

sa Community Member 45 points
29 July 2015 7:37 AM

it's a typo - thanks for noting it... I'll modify it

Zdenek_Se's picture Pro 730 points
30 July 2015 7:06 AM

Hi,

is there any specific error when parsing the ks.cfg?

Did you check the file with ksvalidator?

//Zdenek

James Radtke's picture Red Hat Guru 7081 points
30 July 2015 3:07 PM

I will need time to confirm this, but I am not certain that RHEL 6 accepts the inst.* options.
In case this is the right answer (and in hopes of quickly getting you moving forward), try just using ks=http://\<IP>/ks-cfg.ks.

Please see (Sec 26.6)
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/Installation_Guide/index.html#ch-parmfiles-Kickstart_parameters

Zdenek_Se's picture Pro 730 points
30 July 2015 6:14 PM

Well I missed that in my previous comment, but inst.ks came with RHEL7, up to RHEL6 was only a ks= valid option...

//Zdenek

sa Community Member 45 points
30 July 2015 4:56 PM

Thanks for the hint.

I removed "inst." from the inst.ks option. The "inst.repo/ks" is the recommended option on RHEL 7 with KVM however, doing so does not parse the kickstart profile.

I'm now able to install both RHEL 7 and RHEL 6 with the same command line.

Thanks a lot James!

James Radtke's picture Red Hat Guru 7081 points
30 July 2015 5:51 PM

I just happen to have a bit of experience with this specific type of functionality (I use it on my laptop to build my lab environment) - so, I'm glad to help ;-)

This is what I typically use:

virt-install --name ${GUESTNAME} --hvm --connect qemu:///system \
  --description "${GUESTNAME}" --virt-type=kvm \
  --network=default --vcpus=${NUMCPUS} --ram=${MEM} \
  --disk /var/lib/libvirt/images/${GUESTNAME}/${GUESTNAME}-0.img,device=disk,bus=virtio,format=qcow2 \
  --os-type=linux --os-variant=${OSVARIANT} \
  --location="http://${WEBSERVER}/OS/${OSDIR}" \
  -x "ks=http://${WEBSERVER}/${GUESTNAME}.ks"

Obviously, there are other parts to this which set all those variables and I also "pre-create" the Virtual Disk.

  qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o preallocation=metadata /var/lib/libvirt/images/${GUESTNAME}/${GUESTNAME}-0.img ${HDDA}G
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