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Chapter 11. Installation and Booting

Anaconda enables users to set RAID chunk size

This update allows the user to set the --chunksize parameter for the raid utility in a kickstart file to specify the chunk size of a RAID storage, in KiB. Using the --chunksize parameter overrides the default one. As a result, the new chunk size can prevent a negative performance impact the default value might have. (BZ#1332316)

Anaconda text mode now supports IPoIB interfaces

This update adds support for IP over InfiniBand (IPoIB) network interfaces during manual installation in text mode. You can now view IPoIB interface status information and change interface configuration. (BZ#1366935)

inst.debug enables a more convenient debugging of Anaconda installation issues

This update adds the ability to save logs related to the initial state of the machine by starting the Anaconda installation with the inst.debug boot option. This option stores three additional logs, lsblk, dmesg and lvmdump, in the /tmp/pre-anaconda-logs/ directory, allowing a more convenient debugging of issues which occurred during the installation. (BZ#1255659)

Kickstart installation failure automatically triggers %onerror scripts

This enhancement makes sure that the %onerror sections in a kickstart file are run if the Anaconda installation fails. The scripts can be used to collect logs automatically for further examination. As a result of this update, when a traceback or another fatal error occurs during the installation, the installer performs the %onerror scripts and the %traceback scripts check if the error was caused by a traceback. (BZ#1412538)

Anaconda can now wait for network to become available before starting the installation

In some environments, the first DHCP request can be expected to fail. Previously, the first DHCP failure caused Anaconda to proceed with the installation, which could cause problems especially with automatic installations where a connection could not be set up manually later. This update introduces a new Anaconda boot option, inst.waitfornet=X, which forces the installer to spend X seconds waiting for network connectivity before proceeding. The installation will continue once a connection is established, or after the specified time interval has passed. (BZ#1315160)

Multiple network locations of stage2 or Kickstart files can be specified to prevent installation failure

This update enables the specification of multiple inst.stage2 and inst.ks boot options with network locations of stage2 and a Kickstart file. This avoids the situation in which the requested files cannot be reached and the installation fails because the contacted server with the stage2 or the Kickstart file is inaccessible.
With the new update, the installation failure can be avoided if multiple locations are specified. If all the defined locations are URLs, namely HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP, they will be tried sequentially until the requested file is fetched successfully. If there is a location that is not a URL, only the last specified location is tried. The remaining locations are ignored. (BZ#1391724)

autopart --nohome in a kickstart file disables the creation of /home/ in automatic partitioning

This update adds the --nohome option to the autopart command in a kickstart file to disable automatic creation of the /home/ partition. This enhancement avoids the need to perform manual partitioning if the /home/ partition is to be averted. As a result of the update, the /home partition is not created if partitioning is done automatically. (BZ#663099)

Loading driver disks from hard disk drives and USBs enabled

This update enables loading driver disks from a hard disk drive or a similar device instead of loading them over the network or from initrd. The installation can proceed either using the kickstart or the boot options.
The procedure is as follows:
1. Load the driver disk on a hard disk drive, a USB or any similar device.
2. Set the label, for example, DD, to this device.
Notes:
For kickstart installation, add 
driverdisk LABEL=DD:/e1000.rpm
to your kickstart file.
For the boot option, start the installation with 
inst.dd=hd:LABEL=DD:/dd.rpm
as the boot argument.
In both the kickstart and the boot options, replace DD with a specific label and replace dd.rpm with a specific name. Use anything supported by the inst.repo command instead of LABEL to specify your hard disk drive. Do not use non-alphanumeric characters in the argument specifying the LABEL of the kickstart driverdisk command. (BZ#1377233)

Changes in automatic partitioning behavior for LVM thin pools

Previously, every Logical Volume Management (LVM) thin pool created or used in the installation, whether using Kickstart or an interactive installation, 20 % of its size reserved.
This update brings the following changes:
  • If you create a LVM thin pool with automatic partitioning, 20 % of the volume group size is reserved, with a minimum of 1 GiB and a maximum of 100 GiB.
  • If you use the logvol --thinpool --grow command in a Kickstart file, the thin pool will grow to the maximum possible size, which means no space will be left for it in the volume group to grow. In this case, you can use the volgroup --reserved-space or volgroup --reserved-percent command to leave some space in the volume group reserved, which is recommended. (BZ#1131247)

32-bit boot loaders can now boot 64-bit kernels on UEFI

This update enables booting 64-bit kernels using 32-bit boot loaders, such as grub2-i386-efi, on systems with UEFI firmware. (BZ#1310775)

Lorax can now ignore SSL errors

Previously, the lorax tool could not use HTTPS repositories with self-signed certificates. An attempt to do so resulted in an error with no way to continue. This update adds the --noverifyssl command line option to the utility, which can be used to skip verifying the server certificate and bypass the error. (BZ#1430483)

shim-signed rebased to version 12

With this update, the shim-signed package has been upgraded to upstream version 12, which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. Notably, support for 32-bit UEFI firmware and Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) utilities has been added. (BZ#1310764)

gnu-efi rebased to version 3.0.5.-9

With this update, the gnu-efi package has been upgraded to upstream version 3.0.5.-9, which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. Notably, the support for 32-bit UEFI firmware and Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) utilities has been added. (BZ#1310782)

Backward compatibility enabled for killproc() and status()

Prior to this update, the /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions script shipped in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 lacked some of the features of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 counterpart. The initscripts package has been updated to add support for the -b option to the killproc() and status() functions in the /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions file. This addition enables backward compatibility for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and prevents possible regressions when performing an upgrade from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. (BZ#1428935)

DHCP_FQDN allows specifying a fully qualified domain name of the system

Previously, the ifcfg interface configuration files required that the DHCP_HOSTNAME directive was used to specify the hostname of the system. The new initscripts DHCP_FQDN directive now also allows specifying the fully qualified domain name of the system. This is a complement to the DHCP_HOSTNAME directive. In case both DHCP_HOSTNAME and DHCP_FQDN are specified, only DHCP_FQDN is used. (BZ#1260552)

You can now create thin logical volume snapshots during the installation process

This update adds support for a new Kickstart command, snapshot. This command allows you to create a LVM thin volume snapshot either before or after the installation. Available options are:
  • <vg_name>/<lv_name> Specify the name of the volume group and logical volume to make a snapshot of.
  • --name= Specify a name for the snapshot.
  • --when= Specify pre-install if you want to take a snapshot before the installation begins, which can be useful if you want to preserve the state of a system before an upgrade. Alternatively, specify post-install to take a snapshot of a newly installed system before any additional changes are made to it.
All three options are mandatory. Also note that you can use this command multiple times in a single Kickstart file to take a snapshot both before and after the installation, or to take snapshots of multiple logical volumes. Make sure that each -name= parameter specifies a unique name when doing so. (BZ#1113207)