Is there a way to use kickstart to boot a machine into a manual setup process? Basically what I'm getting to is this, the machine doesn't not have a CD drive in it (nor can I add one), but I can boot it via kickstart. The install media is on the network. What I'd like to do is boot this machine up and rather than have kickstart do everything for me as far as installing the OS and packages, instead present me with a manual setup (that I can get to via vnc) where I get to pick what I want or don't want on the machine. After it's all done, I'm going to go through the anaconda files and generate a base kickstart for all future installs. Does anyone have an example kickstart file I can go off of to do that?
Ashley M. Kirchner writes:
Is there a way to use kickstart to boot a machine into a manual setup process? Basically what I'm getting to is this, the machine doesn't not have a CD drive in it (nor can I add one), but I can boot it via kickstart.
[...]
When no kickstart file is provided in the configured location, you will be dropped into the manual installer.
On 02/03/2015 10:28 AM, Ashley M. Kirchner wrote:
Is there a way to use kickstart to boot a machine into a manual setup process? Basically what I'm getting to is this, the machine doesn't not have a CD drive in it (nor can I add one), but I can boot it via kickstart. The install media is on the network. What I'd like to do is boot this machine up and rather than have kickstart do everything for me as far as installing the OS and packages, instead present me with a manual setup (that I can get to via vnc) where I get to pick what I want or don't want on the machine. After it's all done, I'm going to go through the anaconda files and generate a base kickstart for all future installs. Does anyone have an example kickstart file I can go off of to do that?
It sounds like you just want to do a VNC install. There is a write-up in the RHEL installation guide on doing just that. You can either have the installer accept incoming VNC connections for the session or have it connect to a listening VNC client via boot arguments.
The documentation says that you can just put "vnc" (or "vncconnect={host}") in the kickstart file in the command section and proceed from there. Here's a link to an article in Red Hat Magazine that has a pretty good overview:
As usual, YMMV!
On 02/03/2015 11:19 AM, Jay Leafey wrote:
The documentation says that you can just put "vnc" (or "vncconnect={host}") in the kickstart file in the command section and proceed from there. Here's a link to an article in Red Hat Magazine that has a pretty good overview:
As usual, YMMV!
OK, not QUITE that simple after all. The "vnc" or "vncconnect" entries have to be passed to the kernel via grub or syslinux/isolinux rather than in the kickstart file. Your network install media would have to be altered to do this if you cannot add the options to the command line interactively.
Sorry!
With Lars' original comment of not having a ks file specified, I figured it out from there. And appending vnc to the command line is really all I need for it to work.
Thanks everyone for the replies. Always very helpful!
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 10:43 AM, Jay Leafey jay.leafey@mindless.com wrote:
On 02/03/2015 11:19 AM, Jay Leafey wrote:
The documentation says that you can just put "vnc" (or "vncconnect={host}") in the kickstart file in the command section and proceed from there. Here's a link to an article in Red Hat Magazine that has a pretty good overview:
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/024oct06/features/kickstart/
As usual, YMMV!
OK, not QUITE that simple after all. The "vnc" or "vncconnect" entries have to be passed to the kernel via grub or syslinux/isolinux rather than in the kickstart file. Your network install media would have to be altered to do this if you cannot add the options to the command line interactively.
Sorry!
-- Jay Leafey - jay.leafey@mindless.com Memphis, TN _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
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