Re: ks.cfg & RedHat tree

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004, Fred Leeflang wrote:

>I thought about using PXELINUX or something like that. Most of our
>more modern servers support that in BIOS and it seems like an elegant
>solution. I see one drawback though:
>
>- The pxelinux image MUST sit on the DHCP server so it can be tftp'ed.

Nonsense; where's that written?

The pxelinux image must live on the "next-server" at "filename", but
there's no requirement that next-server == DHCP server.

>Not a big issue I guess. How would you go about passing the
>location of the PXELINUX image? Is it possible to set those
>arguments in the filename "" setting in DHCP?

An example might make this clearer:

shared-network EXAMPLE-DHCP {
  use-host-decl-names   on;
  option domain-name    "example.com";
  subnet 10.1.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
    option routers 10.1.1.1;
    option domain-name-servers          10.1.3.2;
    next-server                         10.1.3.2;
    filename                            "/tftpboot/pxelinux.0";
    host nosuchmac {
      hardware ethernet         00:11:00:33:22:11;
      fixed-address             10.1.1.222;
    }
  }
}

>Lots of questions still... I read somewhere that it's not
>just possible to copy updated RPMS in the Redhat/ dir and
>expect them to be installed with the next kickstart.

You'd need to run genhdlist.

>There's also no way I guess to specify the versions of RPMS to be
>installed so we could make a repository of some sort which keeps track
>of which RPMS/versions are installed on a server at any time. I read
>some about kickstart-utils which seems worth investigating, but are
>there any of you out there who use any such tools that, for example,
>scan a system and automatically maintain a ks.cfg?

There are many ways of managing your package lists. The best solution
will depend on your software requirements, diversity of systems,
approach to change-management, whether you want to pay Redhat for
RHN subscriptions etc. "/root/anaconda-ks.cfg" comes close to what
you're asking for.


Cheers,
Phil