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Chapter 29. Installation and Booting

Graphics cards using the ast module can now be used during installation

Due to missing dependencies for the ast module in the installation system, graphics cards that rely on this module were unable to be used during installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. These dependencies have now been added. (BZ#1272658)

Installations can now be performed on disks containing invalid or unsupported partition tables.

Previously, when attempting to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 on a disk with a corrupt or unsupported partition table, the installation failed, most commonly when attempting to write to the disk. Support for the removal of invalid and unsupported partition tables has been added, and installations can now be performed on disks with such partition tables. (BZ#1266199)

Multiple inst.dd options are now supported to load driver disks

The job for loading driver disks based on the inst.dd option was scheduled with a unique option. When multiple inst.dd sources were specified as boot options, only the last one was actually loaded and applied. This update ensures the job is no longer called as unique. As a result, multiple inst.dd boot options can now be specified to provide drivers via multiple driver update images from different sources. (BZ#1268792)

Help for the subscription manager screen during installation

The installer's built-in help system now includes information regarding the subscription manager screen. (BZ#1260071)

The Initial Setup utility starts correctly

Due to a race condition between the initial-setup-text service and the initial-setup-graphical service, the interface of the Initial Setup utility sometimes started incorrectly. The two services have now been combined into a single service, initial-setup. The original services are still available for compatibility, but are not used by default. As a result, the interface now displays correctly. (BZ#1249598)

VNC installation using IPv6 works correctly

Due to an error in the processing of IPv6 addresses, IPv6 address lookup failed. Consequently, it was not possible to install through VNC using IPv6. This bug has been fixed. (BZ#1267872)

HyperPAV aliases used during installation are now available on the installed system

Previously, HyperPAV aliases activated during installation were not correctly configured on the installed system. HyperPAV handling has now been improved, and any HyperPAV aliases used during installation are now automatically configured on the installed system. (BZ#1031589)

Errors in custom partitioning are correctly detected

Previously, errors in custom partitioning were not displayed to the user properly, allowing the installation to continue with an invalid custom partition configuration, leading to unexpected behavior. This bug has been fixed and errors in custom partitioning are now correctly reported to the user so they can be adjusted before continuing the installation. (BZ#1269195)

Static routes configured during installation are now automatically configured on the installed system

Previously, static route configuration files were not copied from the installation environment to the installed system. Consequently, static route configuration during installation was lost after the installation finished. These files are now copied, and static routes configured during installation are automatically configured on the installed system. (BZ#1255801)

The grub2-mkconfig utility now honors certain grubby configuration variables

Previously, when grubby added some entries to the grub configuration file, debug entries in particular, grub2-mkconfig failed to recognize and replicate those entries when re-run. This update ensures that if MAKEDEBUG=yes is specified in /etc/sysconfig/kernel, grub2-mkconfig does replicate the new grubby configuration entries. (BZ#1226325)

GRUB2 is now correctly configured when upgrading the kernel and redhat-release-*

Previously, if a redhat-release-* package and a kernel package were present in the same Yum transaction, the GRUB2 boot loader was reconfigured incorrectly. As a consequence, GRUB2 failed to boot the newly installed kernel. With this upate, GRUB2 is now correctly reconfigured and can boot the new kernel in this situation. (BZ#1289314)

Kickstart files valid for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 are now correctly recognized by ksvalidator

Previously, when using the ksvalidator utility to validate a Kickstart file made for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 that uses the logvol command with the --reserved-percent option, ksvalidator incorrectly stated that --reserved-percent is not a valid option. This bug has been fixed. (BZ#1290244)

Anaconda no longer crashes when adding iSCSI devices

Previously, the Anaconda installer terminated unexpectedly when attempting to add certain iSCSI devices using the Add a disk button in the Storage screen. This bug has now been fixed. (BZ#1255280)

The Anaconda installer correctly allows adjustment of a problematic disk selection

Previously, if a problem occurred with the selection of disks during installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, an error was displayed after the installation started, and thus caused the installation to fail. With this update, a warning is displayed at the proper time, allowing the disk selection to be adjusted before proceeding. (BZ#1265330)

The anaconda-user-help package is now upgraded correctly

The anaconda-user-help package was not upgraded correctly when upgrading from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1. This has been fixed and the package is now upgraded correctly. (BZ#1275285)

A wider variety of partitions can be used as /boot

Previously, the GRUB2 boot loader only supported 8-bit device node minor numbers. Consequently, boot loader installation failed on device nodes with minor numbers larger than 255. All valid Linux device node minor numbers are now supported, and as a result a wider variety of partitions can be used as /boot partitions. (BZ#1279599)

Incorrect escaping of the / character in systemd no longer prevents the system from booting

Previously, systemd incorrectly handled the LABEL=/ option in the initial RAM disk (initrd). As a consequence, the label was not found, and the system failed to boot when the root partition LABEL included the / character. With this update, / is escaped correctly in the described situation, and the system no longer fails to boot. Updating to a higher minor version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux updates the kernel and rebuilds the initrd. You can also rebuild the initrd by running the dracut -f command. (BZ#1306126)

The default size of the /boot partition is now 1 GB

In previous releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, the default size of the /boot partition was set to 500 MB. This could lead to problems on systems with multiple kernels and additional packages such as kernel-debuginfo installed. The /boot partition could become full or almost full in such scenario, which then prevented the system from upgrading and required manual cleanup to free additional space.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, the default size of the /boot partition is increased to 1 GB, and these problems no longer occur on newly installed systems. Note that installations made with previous versions will not have their /boot partitions resized, and may still require manual cleanup in order to upgrade. (BZ#1369837)

biosboot and prepboot are now included in the Kickstart file after installation

When a Kickstart file included instructions to create biosboot or prepboot partitions, the Blivet module did not pass this information in Kickstart data. Consequently, after a Kickstart installation, the Kickstart file on the newly installed system did not include the options for creating biosboot and prepboot partitions and could not be reused successfully on other systems. With this update, the Kickstart output includes these options as expected, and the Kickstart file can be used on other systems to create the biosboot and prepboot partitions. (BZ#1242666)

os-prober now uses device mapper alias names in the boot loader configuration

The os-prober component previously used the numeric device mapper device in the boot loader configuration. After reboot, when the installer disk image was no longer mounted, the number changed, which rendered the boot entry unusable. Consequently, when two instances of Red Hat Enterprise Linux were installed on one machine, one of them failed to boot. To fix this bug, os-prober now uses device mapper alias names instead of the direct enumerated device mapper names. Because the alias names are more stable, the boot entry works as expected in the described situation. (BZ#1300262)

Installations on IBM z Systems now generate correct Kickstart files

Previously, the anaconda-ks.cfg file, which is a Kickstart file generated during system installation and which contains all selections made during the install process, was representing disk sizes as decimal numbers when installing on IBM z Systems DASDs. This bug caused the Kickstart file to be invalid because only integers are accepted when specifying disk size, and users had to manually edit the file before using it to reproduce the installation. This bug has been fixed, and Kickstart files generated during installation on IBM z Systems can now be used in subsequent installations without any editing. (BZ#1257997)

Formatting DASDs works correctly during a text-based installation

Previously, a bug prevented DASDs from being correctly formatted during a text-based installaton. As a consequence, DASDs that were unformatted or incorrectly formatted had to be manually formatted before use. This bug has been fixed, and the installer can now format DASDs when performing a text-based installation. (BZ#1259437)

Initial Setup now displays the correct window title

The Initial Setup tool, which is automatically displayed after the first post-installation reboot and which allows you to configure settings like network connections and to register your system, previously displayed an incorrect string __main__.py in the window title. This update fixes the bug. (BZ#1267203)

Installation no longer fails when using %packages --nobase --nocore in a Kickstart file

Previously, using a Kickstart file which contained the %packages section and specified the --nobase and --nocore options at the same time caused the installation to fail with a traceback message due to a missing yum-langpacks package. The package is now available, and the described problem no longer occurs. (BZ#1271766)