Network kickstart installation over VLAN tagged interface failing to bring up network

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Hello all. I'm trying to get a system kickstarted over the network. The host has an interface that has several VLANs trunked to it, and one of those is the network needed for installation. The kickstart file is stored in a HTTP-accessible location. I'm booting from the RHEL 7.3 boot ISO image. The problem I'm having, though, is before we even get to the kickstart part. I can't get anaconda to bring up the network interface so that we can make the HTTP connection to fetch the kickstart file. The error I get before the installer immediately boots into its default mode is: Network unreachable.

Here's the basic syntax I'm feeding to the boot prompt:
vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img init.ks=https://my-internal-server/kickstart-v1r4.ks vlan=vlan54:em2 ip=10.7.54.11::10.7.54.1:255.255.255.0:my-hostname:vlan54:none nameserver=10.1.2.5 rd.neednet=1

The network interfaces at play are bnx2x's. I have verified that the host has good connectivity on the trunked port to all of the hosts in question (there is an existing RedHat installation on the system that is bootable). I see in the boot messages that the bnx2x module is loaded, and at some point I see the messages that the port is listed as online at the correct speed.

Any hints? Things I might be missing?

Responses

Is this a problem you got with RHEL 7.3 and not before? I see that you are using https which implies login. Can you include login credentials into your kickstart addressing string and try it that way, or disable secure http and just use regular http connection?

https doesn't necessarily imply credential requirement. That said, I did find the problem: init.ks needs to be inst.ks for anaconda to accept it. This was prototyped on an older RHEL system where either init.ks was accepted as a valid argument, or I had a transcription error when making my notes. I suppose both are possible, but the end result is that it is fixed, and this works correctly to kickstart a system over a VLAN on a trunked interface. Woohoo!

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