Can the NFS media location be passed to anaconda as a kernel arg?

[Wes Hardin]

On 04/28/2010 01:15 PM, Kyle McDonald wrote:
> I want to setup PXE network installs that are interactive, but I'd like
> to limit the amount of questions the user has to enter for each one. The
> PXE boot already passes some kernel args to configure the serial
> console, and force a vnc install. I'm wondering if I can also supply the
> NFS location for the media as a kernel arg so that users don't need to
> type it in everytime (It's always the same, and it's long.)
>
> Also I know when doing KickStart installs, you can use ks-device=eth1 to
> avoid being prompted for the network device when there is more than one.
> Can I use this same option so that the interactive user doesn't have to
> know which eth to pick?
>
> On a related note, is there a way to have anaconda figure out which
> interface the PXE boot booted the machine on and just go with that one?
> Right now I need to make 2 different PXE boot config files for the 2
> types of machines I have because one boots on eth0 and the other on eth1.

I don't think media location is something you pass in on the kernel line. 
Instead, what you can pass in is the path to a kickstart file which then answers 
a lot of those repetitive questions, such as the location of the install tree. 
The kickstart file can be as complete or as minimal as you wish.  I have one 
that only contains the network location of the install tree and waits for the 
installer to answer the rest.

As for using the same interface that you PXE'd from, check out the 
ksdevice=bootif option, described briefly here:

http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/KickStart

This document from Dell mentions it too:

http://linux.dell.com/files/whitepapers/nic-enum-whitepaper-v2.pdf

I don't claim to have figured this out myself, it's set by default on all my 
Cobbler PXE profiles.

/* Wes Hardin */