Kickstart over network on RHEL7

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I have a working kickstart configuration for RHEL5 and RHEL6. I have tried using both the boot.iso and dvd.iso. When I get to the installation prompt, I typically hit then I can enter a string similar to: "linux ks=http:///pub/.cfg ksdevice=eth0 ip= netmask= gateway= noipv6".

I do know that the naming convention of the ksdevice has changed, and I have tried omitting that value, still to no avail.

What I would expect: KS to configure the network device, download KS file and start auto-deployment of unattended installation

What happens: Returns me to the same screen and puts in the default boot from CDROM parameters (e.g. initrd....)

What am I missing? Is there updated documentation from KS with RHEL7?

Thank you,
Steve

sr
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Responses

james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
24 December 2013 3:56 PM

Hey Steve,
I realize you may have updated your boot string to omit sensitive data, but if IP= was actually there, that's not good ;-) Also are you using an IP for your ks=http://192.168.0.100 or a hostname? If hostname, you need to add dns=. Had you tried removing the ks= declaration altogether - which should prompt you to select an interface during the installation?

You may have come across something that is actually still being worked on, as I do not see a "Deployment Guide" for RHEL 7 yet, which would have the information we are looking for. So, any recommendations I could/would make may only be relevant to RHEL 6 and before (i.e. ksdevice=bootif). I believe something has fundamentally changed with RHEL 7, since the new Spacewalk actually adds a new "Installer Generation" option.

If I was in this predicament, I would:
* attempt the install using the DVD
* select a network source for software
* (I would also use ATL-F2 to see what your network interfaces are during the install - ifconfig and/or lspci to validate)
* complete the installation
* review the anaconda file in /root

sr Community Member 40 points
26 December 2013 1:30 PM

Hi James,

Thank you for your response. You are correct about the sensetive information. I did remember to take out the IP, but I forgot to replace it with fake information. =)
Here is my string (with obfiscuation):
linux ks=http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/pub/servername.ks.cfg ksdevice=eth0 ip=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx noipv6

-I know I can install from the Boot media, but I will try to use the GUI and point it to the repo.
-The current KS file that we are using was the one that was created by a manual installation

I will report back with any information.

Thanks again.

Steve

sr Community Member 40 points
26 December 2013 4:03 PM

Hi James,

Well you hit the nail on the head on a few different things. I ended up figuring out that if I hit tab and clearing out the text it would say "no boot or corrupted kernel" and then I could enter my kickstart string and it would start to do stuff. (Subsequently figured out hitting ESC at the menu does the same thing). So that is different than 6.

I did end up using ksdevice=ens192, as I figured out that was the name of the device from a manual installation. I did have a failed installed and looking through the logs it appears that if you don't have a firewall (firewalld) set up before that it will critically fail. I added "firewall --disabled" to my kickstart and it got past that error.

But now to another issue that you mentioned. I had failed to run createrepo on the base directory so that was an obvious omission on my part. However, now I'm running into issues with "No Such Group" found. I know in RHEL6 I had to do a lot of work to get the comps.xml and tree information correct. I have tried to populate the comps.xml, but it doesn't seem to be creating. Thoughts?

touch repodata/comps.xml

createrepo -g repodata/comps.xml --update .

4646/4646 * opencryptoki-icsftok-3.0-4.el7.i686.rpm m.noarch.rpmpm
Saving Primary metadata
Saving file lists metadata
Saving other metadata

cat repodata/comps.xml

Thanks again,
Steve

EDIT: I copied the cda5429be6f36ce1348e8f897f4.xml from the DVD.iso, saved it to comps.xml and re-ran the createrepo command above and it looks like I got passed that "no groups found" error.

james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
27 December 2013 4:55 AM

Hey Steve,
I don't know how "pro" this "pro-tip" is ;-)
(when you want to add "code" to a post, enclose the code with 3 x tilda's - without the quotes, of course)
"~~~"
cat /root/code
"~~~"

Seriously, nice work on the createrepo resolution. You are the first person that I have encountered to report that it is working!

There is a daily job that runs that recreates all the repo data.
(Unfortunately I do not have access to a Satellite at the moment - therefore, I am guessing at specifics and can update the thread later).

You have to log in to your Satellite as THE Administrator, then under the Admin tab there should be a Scheduled Tasks. Under that should be a job at the top (channel-repodata-bunch , I believe). Click the field on the right and run a Single Run.
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Satellite/5.6/html/User_Guide/chap-Red_Hat_Satellite-User_Guide-Scheduling_Red_Hat_Satellite_Administrative_Tasks.html

Another goofy thing I do while working through these types of issues:
mount up the ISO on my satellite in a web-accessible location (i.e. /var/www/html/pub/OS/RHEL-7.0-beta/) and then update my kickstart thread to point there
url --url http://satellite/pub/RHEL-7.0-beta

Just to make sure the mechanics of everything else is working OK.

Take care!

sr Community Member 40 points
3 January 2014 3:42 PM

Ah, Thanks Andrius! This is exactly the type of documentation I was looking for.

OT Community Member 26 points
11 September 2015 2:53 PM

Steve,

A little late to the party here but I'd like to know if there were any changes to the kickstart syntax or kickstart file you had to change in order to get this working. I seem to have come across the same issue you were having in this post, but my issue is that now I end up with an "error setting up base repository" message in the installation source section of the install. Right now I know the installation is reaching the kickstart file and it's being applied to other installation parameters.

I've also tried mounting the RHEL7 DVD ISO file in an accessible location on the satellite and specifying the "inst.repo=" kickstart parameter that results in the same error so I'm thinking maybe I'm missing something in my kickstart command regarding the repo location.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks.

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