Re: Kickstart over Network without PXE

[Tom Diehl <tdiehl rogueind com>]

On Fri, 6 Feb 2004, Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I need some help with this.
> 
> I have a couple of Dell PowerEdge 1650 servers that need to be upgraded
> to ES 3.0. I have paid only for RHEL 3.0 downloadable ISOs. I have
> loop-mounted these on a webserver, setup the /RedHat tree properly etc. I
> have also burnt the ISOs onto CDs.
> 
> When I boot from CD1 and give linux ks=nfs://a.b.c.d/path/to/ks.cfg,

I do not think you can do this. Try putting the ks-cfg file on an http 
or ftp server. I do not think ks knows how to mount nfs, but I could be wrong.

> id doesn't pick up the Kickstart file.
> 
> What I want to do is:
> 
> Boot using a CD (either RHEL CD1 or any other).
> Give it ks=nfs://... option.
> Have the rest of the installation proceed over network (url --url
> http://a.b.c.d/rhel/ in the KS file).
> 
> Please let me know how to go about this. These Dell servers do not have
> PXE compatible NICs.
> 
> A second question is: All my machines are dual NIC. While RH 7.3 used to
> pick the first one automatically for installation, RHEL 3.0 always pauses
> during the installation asking me which one to use (eth0 or eth1). Can I
> hardcode this somewhere so that it will always use eth0 (in the context
> of CD/Floppy boot and PXE boot). I have the unenviable job of upgrading
> almost 300 servers from 7.3 to RHEL 3.0 by the end of this quarter. These
> two Dells are just the beginning :(

Try adding ksdevice=link to the command line. It will then find the nic that
has a link up. Alternatively you can do ksdevice=eth0 or whatever.


If you do not want to mess around with cd's and the system already has grub
or lilo on it you can copy the kernel image and initrd from the first cd
in the images/pxe directory to some place where grub can find it. Then add
something like the following to the grub.conf file:

title Taroon install
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /grub/pxeboot/vmlinuz
        initrd /grub/pxeboot/initrd.img

title Taroon kickstart install
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /grub/pxeboot/vmlinuz \
	ks=http://ip.address.of.server/kickstart/ks.cfg ksdevice=link ramdisk=32768
        initrd /grub/pxeboot/initrd.img

The first one just boots to the installer. The second one boots to a kickstart
install. Obviously the above is for grub but I am sure you could modify it
so it will work for lilo if that is what you are using. 

HTH,

...Tom