Configure multiple network cards with static IP's during host provisioning on VMWare

Resolution

• Until this feature will be fixed in a future release of Satellite the following workaround will solve the problem.
  Especially on RHEL 7 we need to turn off "consistent network device naming" to be able to add multiple network cards during host creation in Satellite with an explicit identifier eth[1-n] configured. Furthermore we need to change a small grep command in the "kickstart_networking_setup" provisioning template where we can now grep for the network card identifier name instead of the MAC address (which is not known before the virtual machine is created).

• Clone provisioning template "Satellite Kickstart Default" to "CUSTOM_Kickstart_Default"

• Disable "consistent network device naming" in "CUSTOM_Kickstart_Default" by adding the "net.ifnames=0" option:

Old:

[...]
<% if @host.operatingsystem.name == 'Fedora' and os_major <= 16 -%>
# Bootloader exception for Fedora 16:
bootloader --append="nofb quiet splash=quiet <%=ks_console%>" <%= grub_pass %>
part biosboot --fstype=biosboot --size=1
<% else -%>
bootloader --location=mbr --append="nofb quiet splash=quiet" <%= grub_pass %>
<% end -%>

New:

[...]
<% if @host.operatingsystem.name == 'Fedora' and os_major <= 16 -%>
# Bootloader exception for Fedora 16:
bootloader --append="nofb quiet splash=quiet <%=ks_console%>" <%= grub_pass %>
part biosboot --fstype=biosboot --size=1
<% else -%>
bootloader --location=mbr --append="nofb quiet splash=quiet net.ifnames=0" <%= grub_pass %>
<% end -%>

• Create PXE template "CUSTOM_PXE_Default" with the following content where we will be able to configure static IP addresses instead of using DHCP for every interface:

default linux
label linux
kernel <%= @kernel %>
<% if @host.operatingsystem.name == 'Fedora' and @host.operatingsystem.major.to_i > 16 -%>
append initrd=<%= @initrd %> ks=<%= foreman_url('provision')%>&static=yes ks.device=bootif network ks.sendmac
<% elsif @host.operatingsystem.name != 'Fedora' and @host.operatingsystem.major.to_i >= 7 -%>
append initrd=<%= @initrd %> ks=<%= foreman_url('provision')%>&static=yes network ks.sendmac net.ifnames=0
<% else -%>
append initrd=<%= @initrd %> ks=<%= foreman_url('provision')%>&static=yes ksdevice=bootif network kssendmac
<% end -%>
IPAPPEND 2

This is documented in here. Only the "net.ifnames=0" option to disable "consistent network device naming" was added.

• Clone template "kickstart_networking_setup" to "CUSTOM_kickstart_networking_setup" and edit it as follows:

Old:

[...]
# <%= bond.identifier %> interface
[...]
# <%= interface.identifier %> interface
[...]
# <%= interface.identifier %> interface
real=`ip -o link | grep <%= interface.mac -%> | awk '{print $2;}' | sed s/:$//`

New:

[...]
<%= bond.identifier %> interface
[...]
<%= interface.identifier %> interface
[...]
<%= interface.identifier %> interface
real=`ip -o link | grep <%= interface.identifier -%> | awk '{print $2;}' | sed s/:$//`
[...]

• Change code snippet for network card configuration in "CUSTOM_Kickstart_Default":

Old:

[...]
<%= snippet 'kickstart_networking_setup' %>

New:

[...]
<%= snippet 'CUSTOM_kickstart_networking_setup' %>"

Now you only need to assign the new templates to the operating systems of your choice.