Kickstart Steps (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Alan McKay]

I'm putting one together right now.   Here is what I have so far.
Pick your closest repository, not necessarily the one I list.

    * On kickstart server I've created /var/www/html/ks for doing
kickstart installs, and it shows up at http://192.168.0.222/ks/
    * the Centos 5.3 DVDs got downloaded - both 32 bit and 64 bit

mkdir /mnt/C5.3_{32,64}
chmod 0777 /mnt/C5.3_{32,64}
mount -ro loop /home/amckay/Desktop/CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-DVD.iso /mnt/C5.3_32
mount -ro loop /home/amckay/Desktop/CentOS-5.3-x86_64-bin-DVD.iso /mnt/C5.3_64
mkdir -p /var/www/html/ks/centos/5.3/{os,updates}/{i386,x86_64}
pushd /var/www/html/ks/centos/
ln -s 5.3 5
popd
rsync -avHPS /mnt/C5.3_64/ /var/www/html/ks/centos/5.3/os/x86_64/
rsync -avHPS /mnt/C5.3_32/ /var/www/html/ks/centos/5.3/os/i386/
rsync  -avSHP --delete --exclude "local*" --exclude "isos"
rsync://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/centos/5.3/
/var/www/html/ks/centos/5.3/
chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/ks/

Then I have this set up to run nightly in cron to rsync my repo :
/usr/bin/rsync  -avSHP --delete --exclude "local*" --exclude "isos"
rsync://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/centos/5.3/
/var/www/html/ks/centos/5.3/

Now the server itself is done.

Do your first install manually and select all the packages you want.
When you are done, log in and grab the file /root/anaconda-ks.cfg as
it is your first kickstart file.

In that file replace the word "cdrom" with the appropriate location of
your kickstart server :

url --url http://192.168.0.22/ks/centos/5.3/os/x86_64

We also have custom versions of the default repo files which point to
our own yum repo instead of externally.  So within the %post section
of the kickstart file we do :

wget http://192.168.0.22/ks/CentOS-Base.repo -O
/etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

That's about it for now.  You can do tonnes of stuff in the kickstart
file - even stuff like prompt up front before the install to ask if
you want the HD automatically formatted, or if you want to do it
manually.  Or ask if they want to provide the IP and other config info
right now.   I don't have that implemented yet.  But when I'm closer
to done near the end of the month I'd be happy to provide my complete
kickstart files.   I'd have to sanitize them first ...

cheers,
-Alan









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