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kickstart

Created by dave. Last edited by dave, 17 years and 125 days ago. Viewed 9,950 times. #2
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RedHat Linux Kickstart Documentation

see: >>http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/custom-guide/ch-kickstart2.html

RedHat 8: >>http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/custom-guide/ch-kickstart2.html

Note that the Kickstart appears unchanged since RedHat 7.3.

Kickstarting from the hard disk through grub:

title Reinstall
        root (hd0,0)  
        kernel /vmlinuz.reinstall ks=hd:hda1:/ks.cfg
        initrd /initrd.reinstall

Grab the vmlinuz and initrd from the install CD and put them in /boot. Then when you want to reinstall, just edit grub.conf, change the default= line and remove the "lock". The system will kickstart itself, no bood media is required (besides the hard disk, of course).

(Aparrently this will work on ext3 filesystems as well.)

Another trick: leave the ks.cfg on a web server somewhere:

title Reinstall
        lock
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz.reinstall ks=http://kickstart.server/ks.cfg
        initrd /initrd.reinstall

From the syslinux prompt, you can tell the system to demand a driver disk right away:

ks dd

...but you have to be careful to put the boot disk back in immediately after reading the driver or the installer won't find the ks.cfg on the floppy. (If you have the ks.cfg on a boot CDROM, or on a http server somewhere, you don't have to worry about this.)

If you have your ks.cfg available on a http server somewhere, you can even use the distribution media to initiate the kickstart. At the boot: prompt, enter:

boot: linux ks=http://10.0.10.2/ks/9/ks.cfg

...adjusting the URL to reflect where your ks.cfg really is, of course.

If you have more than one interface, the installer will stop and ask you which one you want to use. You can tell it in advance:

boot: linux ks=http://10.0.10.2/ks/9/ks.cfg ksdevice=eth0

If you don't need a shell prompt (Alt-F2 at the installer) and think that leaving access to a shell prompt might be dangerous, you can disable it as so:

boot: linux ks=http://10.0.10.2/ks/9/ks.cfg noshell
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This is a collection of techical information, much of it learned the hard way. Consider it a lab book or a /info directory. I doubt much of it will be of use to anyone else.

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