Kickstart improvements, setting up network in an automatic manner out-of-the-box
This may or may not be a RHEL7 specific suggestion as this can either be implemented in Anaconda or (perhaps prefered) as a "off-the-shelf" snippet delivered as a part of RHN Satellite.
* Provide a standardized and automated way to setup networking. Including but not limited to setting up: nic configuration (ip, netmask, network, speed, duplex), enumeration order of network devices, routing, bonding, vlans, bonding+vlans, switching from DHCP to static addresses during install time, enabling services and firewall rules. It would be pretty trivial to get that in place, but would provide tremendus value, as most customers are faced with creating custom kickstart solutions to solve issues surrounding this.
Doing this would remove the biggest threshhold for adopting RHN Satellite.
Responses
Pro
447 points
In a broader scope, there are more common things where you could provide a standard solution. Enabling and configuring services for example.
Red Hat
25369 points
Thanks for the suggestion, Magnus. I'll post this across to the RHEL and Satellite groups too.
At least it would be nice to see during network installation which ethernet device has link and which one not. Right now I have to try each interface (could be up to 6) until installation works.
There is already a kickstart option available for this in RHNS, it's called "services" and is listed under the advanced options tab. Here the the description from the documentation:
services-
Modifies the default set of services that will run under the default runlevel. The services listed in the disabled list will be disabled before the services listed in the enabled list are enabled.
-
--disabled— Disable the services given in the comma separated list. -
--enabled— Enable the services given in the comma separated list.
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Pro
447 points
Seems like you could benefit from ksdevice=bootif, which will select whatever nic has link.
RHN Satellite release 5.4.1 and usually installing redhat 5.7
my satellite syntax is
ksdevice=link
and it finds the one with link.
Pro
447 points
That is correct. ksdevice=bootif is if you're PXE installing. In conjuction with IPAPPEND 2 it will make sure you install on the same interface that you PXE booted on.
Red Hat
Guru
1461 points
Hi,
If you simply want to get the kickstart profile got loaded from a particular interface, you can also give mac address of the NIC you want, this will be helpful if there are more NICs connected to different different networks and you want to get the kickstart from a particular network.
This is the boot parameter you can use.
`ksdevice=<mac address>`-Pushpendra
Red Hat
Guru
1461 points
Hi Magnus,
The idea you mentioned will really help customers.
> Provide a standardized and automated way to setup networking.
Yes, this will really add more value towards customers. This can be achieved with the help of custom scripts, which may or may not be the part of certain installations, but yes, it will be great.
> Doing this would remove the biggest threshhold for adopting RHN Satellite.
But I don't think RHN Satellite adoption is done only for such scripting and provisioning. The scope of RHN Satellite is too wide than that of provisioning a machine, which is necessary to be in environment in bigger organizations. And if we add the above functionalities in RHN Satellite then provisioning will be much simpler and easier, all settings will be a `tick` away from customers.
Thanks.
-Pushpendra
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