Guest Article: Kickstart Vol. III

Today is the third guest article in a row, and is one more article about Kickstart. There will be more Kickstart articles, but we’ll release those in time. This is the third one in a row, so we’ll try to mix it up a bit.

By now, we should all have at least a little familiarity with Kickstart. Frankly, I’ve still not had a chance to use it – but it does seem like it’d be fun to play around with it. If I were an admin of anything major, I’d definitely look to Kickstart as a solution. Again, if you read this on day one, be sure to check back later as the author may suggest some edits.

See the previous articles here:

Guest Article: Kickstart Vol. I
Guest Article: Kickstart Vol. II

Kickstart Vol. III

Now we need to create a menu for your Kickstart, so you can select which OS you want to install.

cd /var/lib/tftpboot/efi

Now edit a new file named grub.cfg. It must be named grub.cfg. Here is an example of what it should look like.

function load_video {
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
insmod video_bochs
insmod video_cirrus
insmod all_video
insmod gfxterm
terminal_output gfxterm
loadfont fonts/unicode.pf2
insmod gfx_term_background
insmod png
background_image -m stretch splash.png
}

load_video
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio

set default="1"
set timeout="4"

menuentry 'Install Fedora32' {
echo "Loading efi/fed32/vmlinuz"
linuxefi efi/fed32/vmlinuz inst.repo=http://192.168.7.227/pub/fed32srv/dvd/ ip=dhcp inst.ks=http://192.168.7.227/pub/fed32srv/fed32.cfg inst.text
echo "Loading efi/fed32/initrd.img"
initrdefi efi/fed32/initrd.img
echo "Booting installation kernel"
}
menuentry 'Install Fedora35' {
echo "Loading efi/fed35/vmlinuz"
linuxefi efi/fed35/vmlinuz inst.repo=http://192.168.7.227/pub/fed35srv/dvd/ ip=dhcp inst.ks=http://192.168.7.227/pub/fed35srv/fed35.cfg inst.text
echo "Loading efi/fed35/initrd.img"
initrdefi efi/fed35/initrd.img
echo "Booting installation kernel"}menuentry 'Install Redhat9' {
echo "Loading efi/rh9/vmlinuz"
linuxefi efi/rh9/vmlinuz inst.repo=http://192.168.7.227/pub/rh9srv/dvd/ ip=dhcp inst.ks=http://192.168.7.227/pub/rh9srv/rh9.cfg inst.text
echo "Loading efi/rh9/initrd.img"
initrdefi efi/rh9/initrd.img
echo "Booting installation kernel"}

The set-default lets you pick which is the default install, it starts at zero, so the options here would be 0, 1 and 2.

Note the IP address of my Kickstart server is here, the path to my extracted iso directory is here, and the location of my boot kernels is here.You can change all of these to fit your needs.

Now we need the actual anaconda-kickstart.cfg files, this is what actually does all the work.The location of these, is set in the grub.cfg file above. You will want these to be in the extracted iso directory, but not in the “dvd” sub-directory.

Here is an example of what one of these would look like. This one is fairly basic.

# Generated by Anaconda 35.22.2
# Generated by pykickstart v3.34
#version=DEVEL
# repo --name="OSupdates" --baseurl=http://192.168.7.227/pub/fed35srv/OSupdates

# Use graphical install
text
skipx

# Keyboard layouts
keyboard --vckeymap=us --xlayouts='us'
# System language
lang en_US.UTF-8

# Network information
network --bootproto=dhcp --device=enp0s25 --ipv6=auto --activate
network --hostname=lenovoX1

url --url="http://192.168.7.227/pub/fed35srv/dvd"

%packages
@^server-product-environment
@headless-management
lshw
inxi
tree

%end

# SELinux
selinux --disabled

# Run the Setup Agent on first boot
firstboot --disable
reboot

# Generated using Blivet version 3.4.2
ignoredisk --only-use=sda
# Partition clearing information
clearpart --all --initlabel --drives=sda --disklabel gpt
# Disk partitioning information
part /home --fstype="xfs" --ondisk=sda --size=122880
part /boot/efi --fstype="efi" --ondisk=sda --size=195 --fsoptions="umask=0077,shortname=winnt"
part / --fstype="xfs" --ondisk=sda --size=25600
part /space --fstype="xfs" --ondisk=sda --size=61440
part swap --fstype="swap" --ondisk=sda --size=8192
part /boot --fstype="xfs" --ondisk=sda --size=2560
part /var --fstype="xfs" --ondisk=sda --size=20480

# System timezone
timezone America/Los_Angeles --utc

# Root password
rootpw --iscrypted $y$j9T$NGj.3h2k8ejecjn3hfh8fESuYQn4fSQcigRhb2vkkG23kXWvETOB
user --name=elvisp --password=$y$j9T$OlWK198c8ufhfhhf930jDFSvKFwSJzZcn60 --iscrypted --gecos="Elvis Presley"

Again you see the IP address of my kickstart server here, you see the location of my extracted iso files here.Now there are a few things you will need to know in advance.

What I typically do, is install the OS from a USB the first time.In the case of fedora/redhat/CentOS there will be a file at /root/anaconda.cfg. You can copy this file as a starting template for your kickstart of this OS.

scp /root/anaconda.cfg root@192.168.7.227/pub/fed35srv/fed35.cfg

(Yes I am re-naming the file here.)

Also you will need the password has strings for your users.

cat /etc/shadow | grep rootcat /etc/shadow | grep elvisp

(Or whatever user name you use.)

You will need to know the name of the LAN interface, and you will need to know the size of your hard, and how big the partitions should be.All of these things will be in your anaconda.cfg file

Now change and edit a few things in your fed35srv/fed35.cfg file now.

Change the graphical install to..testskipx This uses a cli interface, not a GUI when installing.

Change the url line to the location of your extracted iso directory in your web server. Note you don’t put the full path, only the path from your webroot.

I like to turn off seLinux, but you can delete that line if you like.

Change your timezone to whatever is appropriate for you.

Using the two example user lines above (those aren’t real hashes, I just typed a bunch of random characters to simulate what it looks like). Edit the user lines to be whatever your values are.

That’s it, you’re don! Now boot your test computer on the kickstart network. A Kickstart menu should appear. Select the appropriate OS.

I’ve found this usually works best with a few settings on the test computer. CSM should be disabled. Network stack should be enabled. Some UEFI settings let you pick PXEboot IPv4 as a boot option. This is preferred. I’ve found it works best with a freshly formatted hard-drive, that way it doesn’t try to boot into the installed OS.

Good luck!

Closure:

And there you have it! You have a guest article, from dos2unix, about Kickstart. There are now three of them and there are a couple of others sitting in the potential queue. We’ll get to them. These few days off have been a very welcomed respite!

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