Kickstart installation via network -- not able to override network settings?

Shabazian, Chip Chip.Shabazian at bankofamerica.com
Wed Dec 12 18:21:15 UTC 2007


Have you tried using the "interactive" option in your kickstart file? 

-----Original Message-----
From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Ray Van Dolson
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 9:40 AM
To: kickstart-list at redhat.com
Subject: Kickstart installation via network -- not able to override
network settings?

May repost this on the anaconda list as I'm not sure which list is more
appropriate.

In any case, I am doing network-based kickstart installs with RHEL 5.1
and running into an issue where anaconda is not prompting me for network
card information.

We specify the location of the kickstart file as located on an NFS share
on bootup.  The installation URL is via HTTP.

Back in the RHEL4 days we used this same method -- we essentially use
the kickstart file as "defalts" and do an interactive install so the
installer may override things on an as-needed basis.  Often times I
machine requires a static IP address so the installer would simply
provide this information when prompted to by anaconda.

However, in RHEL5 we are _never_ prompted for network information at
all.  From reading the kickstart documentation it seems that if you are
doing a network installation and do not provide any network
configuration information in the kickstart file then it is assumed that
you will be acquring your IP address via DHCP and the installed system
is also configured in this same way.

It would seem that my alternatives would be to either specify the full
static IP information via the network keyword in the kickstart file or
rely on a CD-based installation so that I am presented with the network
settings dialog during installation.

Neither is a great option as this means I will have to maintain special
copies of the kickstart file for machines requiring static IP's or
require the user to configure networking post installation to override
the default DHCP setup.

I realize I could also pass IP information via the bootup options, but I
am trying to make this as trivial as possible for installers, and all
that extra typing is prone to typo's.

I have tried modifying my kickstart file to include only "network
--bootproto=static" to no avail.  Apparently it needs all of the options
for this to work.  And I still don't get a screen in the installer to
manually configure networking.

I've enabled debugging during the installation and don't see anything
pointing to why the networking screen isn't brought up.

Am I doing something wrong?  Is this just "how it works" now with
kickstart / anaconda?

Thanks in advance.
Ray

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