Anaconda kickstart options and lowlevel netboot.img input options.

[Tom Miller]

Collin, 
   Thanks for your reply.
   I would love to use dhcp, this would solve all my problems but IBM prevents me from doing that. They do not pass dhcp requests thru the site bridges/gateways/routes so I would have to have a dhcp server on each subnet that contained victims to install. I have 5 servers in
Austin, one in Rochester, Mn and one in Poughkeepsie, NY and they install 100's of systems
a week on many different subnets. 

   I did not realize that the installer and kernel couldn't even agree on which nic was eth0.
Thats all the more need for anacondo and the netboot.img to deal with mac addresses.

You don't happen to be an anaconda coder do you?

thanks
tom

Monday, August 21, 2006 7:51 PM
To: "Discussion list about Kickstart" <kickstart-list at redhat.com>
cc: 
From: "Coe, Colin C." <Colin.Coe at woodside.com.au>
Subject: RE: Anaconda kickstart options and lowlevel netboot.img input   options.


If you know the MAC addr, could you use a DHCP server with an entry for each LPAR you want to install?  Something like:

allow booting;
allow bootp;

...

group {
        subnet 9.3.22.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
                option domain-name "ibm.com";
                option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
                option broadcast-address 9.3.22.255;
                option domain-name-servers 9.0..7.1;
                option routers 9.3.22.1;
        }
        # PXE-specific configuration directives...
        next-server 9.3.22.253;
        filename "pxelinux.0";

...

       host lpar02 {
                hardware ethernet 2A:CA:30:00:40:02;
                fixed-address 9.3.22.202;
                option host-name "lpar02";
        }

...
}

Just a thought.

Also, if you're using EL4, beware that sometimes the NIC that the installer decides is eth0 is not what the installed kernel thinks is eth0.

CC
-----Original Message-----
From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Tom Miller
Sent: Tuesday, 22 August 2006 3:06 AM
To: kickstart-list at redhat.com
Subject: Anaconda kickstart options and lowlevel netboot.img input options. 



I am using a kickstart.cfg file to load power 5 lpars via network install. I use a bootp server
to deliver the RedHat netboot.img to the victim machine, I set the boot-file SMS env variable to pass boot image parms to netboot.img.  Here's what I pass:

 text ip=9.3.22.104 netmask=255.255.255.128 gateway=9.3.22.1 nameserver=9.0.7.1 ksdevice=eth0 ks=nfs:9.3.80.16:/lpars/sift22104.cfg
This lets the netboot.img config eth0 to access the ks file on the server. 

I have this network line in the /lpars/sift22104.cfg kickstart file: 

network --device eth0 --bootproto static --ip 9.3.22.104 --netmask 255.255.255.128 --gateway 9.3.22.1 --nameserver 9.0.7.1 --hostname sift22104.austin.ibm.com

This works just fine and the install completes. 

I need to make this work on lpars that have never been loaded before and these lpars can have several eth adapters so the user will not know what order the adatpers will be configured so he can't specify eth0 or eth1 in the options above.  I have expect code that goes thru the SMS menus and attempts to ping the server on each eth adatper until it finds one that is connected: I can pull the mac address for that card and could at that point create the netboot.img boot parms line that includes the mac address, but there is no way I can know what ethX redhat will confgure this card as.  I tried changing the netboot.img parms line to:
 text ip=9.3.22.104 netmask=255.255.255.128 gateway=9.3.22.1 nameserver=9.0.7.1 ksdevice=eth-id-2a:ca:30:00:40:02 ks=nfs:9.3.80.16:/lpars/sift22104.cfg

and the kickstart network line to this: 
network --device eth-id-2a:ca:30:00:40:02 --bootproto static --ip 9.3.22.104 --netmask 255.255.255.128 --gateway 9.3.22.1 --nameserver 9.0.7.1 --hostname sift22104.austin.ibm.com

But it did not work.. I got a syntax error back from anaconda complaining about this: 

    self.setNetwork(id, bootProto, ip, netmask, ethtool, device=device, onboot=onboot, dhcpclass=dhcpclass, essid=essid, wepkey=wepkey)
  File "/usr/lib/anaconda/installclass.py", line 332, in setNetwork
    dev = devices[device]
KeyError: 'eth-id-2a:ca:30:00:40:02'

I have searched thru doc's till I am blue and can't find out if there is some way (any correct syntax) to pass the mac address to netboot.img and anaconda instead of the ethX name.

Dose anyone know how this can be done, is it even in the netboot.img/anaconda code to all this and deal with the mac address? 
This is the last thing I need to fully automate these installs for my users with kickstart instead of using expect to fill out all those changing install menus in text mode. 

thanks
tom miller   IBM.
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