What is Kickstart?
Installing Red Hat based systems from physical or virtual media is easy enough when there are only one or two hosts to install. Beyond this, when an administrator needs to setup several Linux systems, Kickstart can provide a relatively easy way to accomplish mass deployment and can be totally automated. It is easy to have several different Kickstart configurations ready to go, each having a different deployment configuration.
Most large companies use this technique to deploy a Red Hat base server image that can then be customized as required. What makes Kickstart even easier is that an administrator can configure Kickstart with nothing more complex than a web server, installation media and at least one Kickstart configuration file. The only other requirement is an active DHCP server so that new clients waiting to be kick started can reach the Kickstart server, having obtained a valid DHCP address. Kickstart can also use other installation mediums, such as NFS and even local media if desired.
Just we can say un-attended installation process, this can be configured using
1. NFS
2. FTP
3. HTTP
Prerequisites: -
· Required installation media
· Configure FTP site to share packages
· Configure DHCP server
To copy all the packages from installation media mount the DVD to mount point
# mount /dev/dvd /media
Install FTP packages
# rpm -ivh vsftpd-2.0.5-10.el5.i386.rpm
Copy the data from /media to /var/ftp/pub/
# cp –Rv /media/* /var/ftp/pub
Start the ftp service
# service vsftpd restart; chkconfig vsftpd on
Stop firewall and SELinux security for now.
# service iptables stop
# vi /etc/selinux/config
In 6th line change from enforcing to disabled.
SELINUX=disabled
Save & exit
Install and start the DHCP service
# rpm -ivh dhcp-3.0.5-3.el5.i386.rpm
After installing the dhcp package DHCP sample configuration file will be available in /usr/share/doc/dhcp*/dhcpd.conf
Copy above sample file to /etc/dhcpd.conf then modify as per your requirement.
# cat dhcpd.conf.sample > /etc/dhcpd.conf
Edit the main config file now
# vi /etc/dhcpd.conf
# cat /etc/dhcpd.conf
#--------------------------Configuration File Starting----------------#
ddns-update-style interim;
ignore client-updates;
subnet 192.168.23.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
# --- default gateway
option routers 192.168.0.1;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option nis-domain "domain.org";
option domain-name "domain.org";
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
option time-offset -18000; # Eastern Standard Time
# option ntp-servers 192.168.1.1;
# option netbios-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
# --- Selects point-to-point node (default is hybrid). Don't change this unless
# -- you understand Netbios very well
# option netbios-node-type 2;
range dynamic-bootp 192.168.23.2 192.168.23.50;
default-lease-time 21600;
max-lease-time 43200;
# we want the nameserver to appear at a fixed address
host ns {
next-server localhost.localdomain;
hardware ethernet 00:0C:20:07:8D:6B;
fixed-address 192.168.23.1;
}
}
# --------------------- Config file END -------------#
# service dhcpd restart
Copy the below sample configuration file
In this case i have created a file in /var/ftp/pub/rhel5.cfg
#sample KickStart File Start
install
text
url --url=ftp://192.168.23.1/pub/
key --skip
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
network --onboot yes --device eth0 --bootproto dhcp
reboot
rootpw redhat
firewall --disabled
authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
selinux --disabled
timezone America/New_York
bootloader --location=mbr --append="rhgb quiet"
clearpart --all
part / --fstype ext3 --size=4000
part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100
part swap --size=2000
%packages --nobase
@core
%post
#END
When it will boot with CD/DVD enter
Boot: linux ks=ftp://192.168.23.1/pub/rhel5.cfg
Installation will continue and it will complete automatically.
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