RH6 "KickStart"
Matt McLeod
Basically, it doesn't want to play with my DHCP server. According
to the debugging output on the DHCP server, it's receiving the
request for an IP, and sending the response (which looks correct
to me), but *most* of the time the RH installer doesn't seem
to be getting the responses.
Which is a wee bit annoying...
Matt
--
"If you're a real good kid, I'll give you a piggy-back ride on a buzz-saw."
-- W. C. Fields
Matt McLeod
>In article <slrn7r7de...@yossarian.asac> of net.computers.os.unix.linux,
> m...@asac.ericsson.se (Matt McLeod) wrote:
>
>> Basically, it doesn't want to play with my DHCP server. According
>> to the debugging output on the DHCP server, it's receiving the
>> request for an IP, and sending the response (which looks correct
>> to me), but *most* of the time the RH installer doesn't seem
>> to be getting the responses.
>
>I've spent a little time trying to get both of those to work and neither
>OpenBSD nor Winbloze seemed to like it.. :-(
The ISC version running on Solaris 2.6. It's only been used with
Windows clients, and not many of those -- just visitors who have
laptops set up to use DHCP.
I'm going to try updating it (as I noticed tonight that a newer
version has been released since this was installed) on Monday,
but I'm not too hopeful.
The real bastard is that it doesn't look like many (any?) other
distributions have anything comparable to Kickstart. I'd like
to get Linux installs to the same sort of level of simplicity
as Solaris Jumpstarts, considering how many of 'em I'm likely
to have to do over the next six months...
Matt
--
"Me no know chickenatomy. Chick anatomy, yes, but I am
not enthusiastic about fileting any women."
-- m...@steam.stanford.edu (Meg Worley)
Bryan C. Andregg
kickstarts around here and they work just fine.
On 13 Aug 1999 17:42:05 GMT, Matt McLeod <m...@labyrinth.net.au> wrote:
>The ISC version running on Solaris 2.6. It's only been used with
>Windows clients, and not many of those -- just visitors who have
>laptops set up to use DHCP.
>
>I'm going to try updating it (as I noticed tonight that a newer
>version has been released since this was installed) on Monday,
>but I'm not too hopeful.
>
>The real bastard is that it doesn't look like many (any?) other
>distributions have anything comparable to Kickstart. I'd like
>to get Linux installs to the same sort of level of simplicity
>as Solaris Jumpstarts, considering how many of 'em I'm likely
>to have to do over the next six months...
--
Bryan C. Andregg * <band...@redhat.com> * Red Hat, Inc.
1024/625FA2C5 F5 F3 DC 2E 8E AF 26 B0 2C 31 78 C2 6C FB 02 77
1024/0x46E7A8A2 46EB 61B1 71BD 2960 723C 38B6 21E4 23CC 46E7 A8A2
Russ Allbery
> The real bastard is that it doesn't look like many (any?) other
> distributions have anything comparable to Kickstart. I'd like to get
> Linux installs to the same sort of level of simplicity as Solaris
> Jumpstarts, considering how many of 'em I'm likely to have to do over
> the next six months...
So what's the current status of KickStart? The last time I heard about it
was at LISA, and after listening to the presentation there it sounded very
much like it was based on the golden image concept rather than the
Jumpstart-like scriptable package installation concept (but I may have
been misunderstanding). I like the Jumpstart approach a lot better; I've
had nothing but pain from golden images.
Oh, and does it let you run custom post-install scripts in the language of
your choice with access to remotely mounted or accessible files? And are
any PC manufacturers getting a clue about the fact that some people
actually use them for servers and integrating a *real* boot prompt like
Sun OpenBoot?
It would be a lot more cost-efficient if we could start using Linux boxes
for some servers here instead of being almost 100% Solaris, but Jumpstart
and a decent boot prompt are pretty convincing reasons to stay with what
we have. If I weren't so insanely busy that I've practically stopped
answering e-mail, I'd volunteer to try to improve KickStart into what we'd
need....
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Matt McLeod
>Matt McLeod <m...@labyrinth.net.au> writes:
>
>> The real bastard is that it doesn't look like many (any?) other
>> distributions have anything comparable to Kickstart. I'd like to get
>> Linux installs to the same sort of level of simplicity as Solaris
>> Jumpstarts, considering how many of 'em I'm likely to have to do over
>> the next six months...
>
>So what's the current status of KickStart? The last time I heard about it
>was at LISA, and after listening to the presentation there it sounded very
>much like it was based on the golden image concept rather than the
>Jumpstart-like scriptable package installation concept (but I may have
>been misunderstanding). I like the Jumpstart approach a lot better; I've
>had nothing but pain from golden images.
I haven't set up any Jumpstarts (we have an IT division who look
after the workstations, and don't do enough servers for it to be
worth Jumpstarting them) so I can't really compare on the setup
side, but the Kickstart stuff seems to work like this:
* grab an IP, server name, and file name from a DHCP server
* NFS-mount the server, grab the kickstart file, and parse
* follow instructions in the kickstart file
The file has basic options (language, X setup info, install
media selection, partitioning, etc), plus a list of pacakges
to install (you can also specify "components" rather than
specific packages).
It does postinstall scripts, too. Although I haven't gotten
far enough to test it properly (since I've only been able
to aquire an IP from the DHCP server once or twice -- the
server gets four requests for an IP, and responds identically
four times, then the installer complains that it isn't getting
any response).
The biggest hitch I have right now is time. If the DHCP stuff
was working (and I've no idea which half is to blame, but as I
said I'll be upgrading the DHCP server on Monday) I'd be a lot
happier, as I have to have these machines on desks on Tuesday.
Hell, one should be in place on Monday so we can nick his
Sparcstation for a newbie...
>Oh, and does it let you run custom post-install scripts in the language of
>your choice with access to remotely mounted or accessible files? And are
>any PC manufacturers getting a clue about the fact that some people
>actually use them for servers and integrating a *real* boot prompt like
>Sun OpenBoot?
I haven't mucked about with the bootprompt, but I'm assuming
that it's basically just LILO. The once thing I *really* miss
from decent bootprompts is the ability to boot any file on /
that I care to name.
>It would be a lot more cost-efficient if we could start using Linux boxes
>for some servers here instead of being almost 100% Solaris, but Jumpstart
>and a decent boot prompt are pretty convincing reasons to stay with what
>we have. If I weren't so insanely busy that I've practically stopped
>answering e-mail, I'd volunteer to try to improve KickStart into what we'd
>need....
Cost-effectiveness is the only reason we're looking at this
stuff, too. Price of one "high-end" PC plus Linux is way
lower than price of a less-fancy Ultra 5 and Solaris. And
since the Sun workstations are becoming more and more PC
like (hell, I get *much* better performance out of the
PC+Linux than the Ultra+Solaris under heavy disk load - as
in the PC is still usable), there doesn't seem much point
paying all that extra dosh for them.
Matt
--
Error reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone
Russ Allbery
> * grab an IP, server name, and file name from a DHCP server NFS-mount
> * the server, grab the kickstart file, and parse follow instructions in
> * the kickstart file
That sounds quite a bit like Jumpstart... now as long as you can run
programs easily off the NFS-mounted server, you can put a full Perl
installation on the NFS-exported partition and then just write all of the
installation in Perl and you're home free. That's what we do with
Jumpstart, and it works wonderfully.
Matt McLeod
>Matt McLeod <m...@labyrinth.net.au> writes:
>
>> * grab an IP, server name, and file name from a DHCP server NFS-mount
>> * the server, grab the kickstart file, and parse follow instructions in
>> * the kickstart file
>
>That sounds quite a bit like Jumpstart... now as long as you can run
>programs easily off the NFS-mounted server, you can put a full Perl
>installation on the NFS-exported partition and then just write all of the
>installation in Perl and you're home free. That's what we do with
>Jumpstart, and it works wonderfully.
The impression I get is that this is possible with Kickstart.
Just haven't had the time to look at it properly.
I'm rather hoping that it is, since there are a fair number
of customizations we're making to these boxes. If we can get
it to install VMware and copy across a generic VM disk at
this stage that'd be another step knocked out.
Matt
--
"Stuff existentialism, I'm goin' back to momma"
-- TISM
Matt McLeod
that Bryan C. Andregg did write:
>I'm definitely suspicious of your DHCP server because we do quite a few DHCP
>kickstarts around here and they work just fine.
OK, I've updated to ISC dhcp-2.0.
I'm seeing the following:
BOOTREQUEST from 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
BOOTREPLY for 146.11.4.151 to assw064 (00:10:5a:73:ef:6e) via hme0
BOOTREQUEST from 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
BOOTREPLY for 146.11.4.151 to assw064 (00:10:5a:73:ef:6e) via hme0
BOOTREQUEST from 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
BOOTREPLY for 146.11.4.151 to assw064 (00:10:5a:73:ef:6e) via hme0
BOOTREQUEST from 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
BOOTREPLY for 146.11.4.151 to assw064 (00:10:5a:73:ef:6e) via hme0
during the initial BOOTP stuff in the Kickstart installer. Then
when I tell it to try DHCP:
DHCPDISCOVER from 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
DHCPOFFER on 146.11.4.151 to 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
DHCPDISCOVER from 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
DHCPOFFER on 146.11.4.151 to 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
DHCPDISCOVER from 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
DHCPOFFER on 146.11.4.151 to 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
DHCPDISCOVER from 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
DHCPOFFER on 146.11.4.151 to 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e via hme0
In the interests of figuring this damned thing out, here's
the relevant bits of dhcpd.conf:
option domain-name "epa.ericsson.se";
option domain-name-servers 146.11.4.14;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 146.11.4.255;
option routers 146.11.4.1;
host assw064 {
hardware ethernet 00:10:5a:73:ef:6e;
fixed-address 146.11.4.151;
filename "/usr/local/ftp/kickstarts/";
next-server assm04.epa.ericsson.se;
}
Matt
--
"Don't tell my momma I'm a sysadmin, she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse."
-- Alan J Rosenthal, ASR
Matt McLeod
>Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril
>that Bryan C. Andregg did write:
>>I'm definitely suspicious of your DHCP server because we do quite a few DHCP
>>kickstarts around here and they work just fine.
>
>OK, I've updated to ISC dhcp-2.0.
And now I've tried it on a different machine, and it seems
to work, although I'm running into new and improved problems -
it doesn't seem able to cope with anything much beyond that.
I'm now getting rather uninformative errors saying it can't
partition the disk, and if I do that by hand it moves on
to an error about finding the installation files.
The Kickstart file I'm trying to use is:
lang en
network --booproto dhcp
nfs --server assm04.epa.ericsson.se --dir /usr/local/ftp/
keyboard us
zerombr yes
clearpart --all
part /boot --size 20
part / --size 100
part /var --size 100
part swap size 128
part /usr --size 1000
part /tmp --size 100
part /scratch size 100 --grow
install
mouse --kickstart generic3ps/2
timezone --utc Australia/Victoria
rootpw --iscrypted $1$33J65JVg$kwJGe1EowlfIzpLrFoFNc/
authconfig --enablenis --nisdomain epa --useshadow
lilo
%packages
@ Workstation
I've just tried it on a machine identical to the first
one (which doesn't seem to be able to do DHCP), with the
same results. The two which can't do DHCP are a pair of
HP Vectra's (PIII/450, 3Com 3c905 NICs, and so on). The
one which gets further is some sort of mongrel P166.
Matt McLeod
>The Kickstart file I'm trying to use is:
>network --booproto dhcp
Oops. Typo.
>rootpw --iscrypted $1$33J65JVg$kwJGe1EowlfIzpLrFoFNc/
And that of course is *not* the actual root password.
Anyway, I'm now pretty sure that it's some interaction between
the installer and the Vectra. Which bit of the Vectra it is,
though, I have no idea.
Matt
--
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday
Nile Evil Bastard
Matt McLeod <m...@labyrinth.net.au> wrote:
:And that of course is *not* the actual root password.
:Anyway, I'm now pretty sure that it's some interaction between
:the installer and the Vectra. Which bit of the Vectra it is,
:though, I have no idea.
HP Vectras suck much more than other hardware for their gratuitous
non-standardness. Has this particular box had any other interesting quirks?
--
http://netizen.com.au/ http://www.caube.org.au/
ALERT! Australian government attempts to censor Australian internet out of
existence! - See http://www.efa.org.au/ for the gory details ...
Matt McLeod
>On 15 Aug 1999 09:15:17 GMT,
>Matt McLeod <m...@labyrinth.net.au> wrote:
>:And that of course is *not* the actual root password.
>
>:Anyway, I'm now pretty sure that it's some interaction between
>:the installer and the Vectra. Which bit of the Vectra it is,
>:though, I have no idea.
>
>HP Vectras suck much more than other hardware for their gratuitous
>non-standardness. Has this particular box had any other interesting quirks?
Nope. We got three of them, I've been using one for about two
weeks (running Linux, although I wasn't trying to Kickstart it),
and haven't noticed anything odd.
We were supposed to get Kayaks, but, well, I imagine most people
here have some idea what VBC purchasing departments are like. The
only mercy is that we probably won't be able to get orders for more
PCs through for months, so at least we've got lots of time to try
and figure out the Kickstart problem before having to do more than
a couple of installs.
Matt
--
"A satisfied customer? We ought to have him stuffed!"
-- Basil Fawlty
Jim Kingdon
> distributions have anything comparable to Kickstart. I'd like
> to get Linux installs to the same sort of level of simplicity
> as Solaris Jumpstarts
You're not the only one. A number of people were asking us questions
of this sort at the Red Hat booth at LinuxWorld.
I had a bit of trouble answering the question, because I don't know
Jumpstart (or other stabs at this problem) very well. Nor was it
always clear exactly what was wanted/needed (beyond the generic
description "make it easy to install large numbers of machines"). I
do know that we - Red Hat - are working on install stuff (which I can,
more or less, talk about, although there are the usual disclaimers
about how we might change our mind before anything gets released and I
might not know what is up myself and so on). But like I say, I'm not
really sure whether what we are working on solving quite the same
problem that you are trying to solve.
Jim Kingdon
Red Hat
Andrew J Cosgriff
> I had a bit of trouble answering the question, because I don't know
> Jumpstart (or other stabs at this problem) very well. Nor was it
> always clear exactly what was wanted/needed (beyond the generic
> description "make it easy to install large numbers of machines").
Being able to have it install onto disks other than the first one
would be good, but I figure/hope that's already in the works...
--
Andrew J Cosgriff <a...@bing.wattle.id.au> exterminate all rational thought !
cars confined narcosis dare virus
Matt McLeod
>> The real bastard is that it doesn't look like many (any?) other
>> distributions have anything comparable to Kickstart. I'd like
>> to get Linux installs to the same sort of level of simplicity
>> as Solaris Jumpstarts
>
>You're not the only one. A number of people were asking us questions
>of this sort at the Red Hat booth at LinuxWorld.
Well, I got Kickstart going on one of our boxes (not a Vectra),
and I'm not at all unhappy with it so far -- got to do some work
on building customization scripts, but it mostly looks pretty
reasonable.
As this goes on, I'll be sure to provide feedback! :-)
Now, if I could get those bloody Vectras to talk DHCP...
Jim Kingdon
> would be good, but I figure/hope that's already in the works...
Well, first of all I assume you are talking about something
KickStart-specific (manually using a partition on a second disk is
like manually using any partition, as far as I know).
As for whether anything is in the works, I haven't heard about a
change in this area. If you want to follow the
development-in-progress, I'd go see what is in rawhide
(ftp://ftp.redhat.com/rawhide although you'll want to use a mirror) -
it seems to have been updated recently.
Matt McLeod
that Jim Kingdon did write:
>> would be good, but I figure/hope that's already in the works...
>
>Well, first of all I assume you are talking about something
>KickStart-specific (manually using a partition on a second disk is
>like manually using any partition, as far as I know).
Something I'd like to see added: some way of marking an e2fs
partition as being one to leave alone during a kickstart.
For example - I'm setting our boxes up to have fixed size /,
/var, /tmp, /boot, and /usr. The rest of the disk (which is
most of it) is mounted as /scratch (this is an area where the
user can stick stuff, but isn't backed up.
Ideally, I'd like to be able to set up kickstart so that when
it repartitions the disk, it leaves that one alone.
Oh, and a quick question - how do I add a package to the install
set? I want sudo on all our boxes, simply putting the rpm into
RedHat/RPMS and adding "sudo" to the package list in the kickstart
file. Doesn't seem to be a simple textfile that I can find to
add it to.
(And for some reason, although there's an xntp package in the
install set, the installer can't find it...)
Enough whining from me. :-)
Bryan C. Andregg
that /etc/resolv.conf is handled [stupidly :)].
Other than that, %post chroots into the installed machine and lets you do
whatever.
We mount and run programs from NFS servers in our kickstarts all of the time.
On 14 Aug 1999 00:43:09 -0700, Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>Matt McLeod <m...@labyrinth.net.au> writes:
>
>> * grab an IP, server name, and file name from a DHCP server NFS-mount
>> * the server, grab the kickstart file, and parse follow instructions in
>> * the kickstart file
>
>That sounds quite a bit like Jumpstart... now as long as you can run
>programs easily off the NFS-mounted server, you can put a full Perl
>installation on the NFS-exported partition and then just write all of the
>installation in Perl and you're home free. That's what we do with
>Jumpstart, and it works wonderfully.
>
>--
>Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>