We have CentOS 6 manual installation working by PXE booting from a RHEL5.6 PXE/TFTP server. However, when we add a Kickstart file in the PXE configuration:
kernel CentOS-6-i386/vmlinuz append load_ramdisk=1 initrd=CentOS-6-i386/initrd.img network ks=nfs:130.226.86.4:/u/rpm/kickstart/ks-centos-6-clean-i386.cfg
then the CentOS 6 client install reports "Unable to download the kickstart file". The console 3 reports "failed to mount nfs source". We believe the NFS server is OK because we can install CentOS5 clients in this way.
Perhaps this problem is related to this RHEL6 bug? https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=653655
However, on the centos list I see some people who apparently go Kickstart to work with CentOS 6 - but how did they do it?
Question: What special configuration is required for either 1) PXE or 2) the DHCP server?
Thanks, Ole
Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
We have CentOS 6 manual installation working by PXE booting from a RHEL5.6 PXE/TFTP server. However, when we add a Kickstart file in the PXE configuration:
kernel CentOS-6-i386/vmlinuz append load_ramdisk=1 initrd=CentOS-6-i386/initrd.img networkks=nfs:130.226.86.4:/u/rpm/kickstart/ks-centos-6-clean-i386.cfg
then the CentOS 6 client install reports "Unable to download the kickstart file". The console 3 reports "failed to mount nfs source". We believe the NFS server is OK because we can install CentOS5 clients in this way.
<snip>
However, on the centos list I see some people who apparently go Kickstart to work with CentOS 6 - but how did they do it?
Question: What special configuration is required for either 1) PXE or 2) the DHCP server?
I just cloned the 5.6 install, and it worked.
Well, kinda. You may have seen, or missed, the thread a couple weeks ago, about this: we do have a local repository, and comps.xml was missing. Then, having now switched to my new workstation, I found that window manager names changes (like KDE and Gnome), so they weren't installed, and for some reason, xorg was not a prerequisite. OO.o, btw, has had a group name change as well.
mark, working his way through
Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
We have CentOS 6 manual installation working by PXE booting from a RHEL5.6 PXE/TFTP server. However, when we add a Kickstart file in the PXE configuration:
kernel CentOS-6-i386/vmlinuz append load_ramdisk=1 initrd=CentOS-6-i386/initrd.img networkks=nfs:130.226.86.4:/u/rpm/kickstart/ks-centos-6-clean-i386.cfg
then the CentOS 6 client install reports "Unable to download the kickstart file". The console 3 reports "failed to mount nfs source". We believe the NFS server is OK because we can install CentOS5 clients in this way.
<snip> > However, on the centos list I see some people who apparently go Kickstart > to work with CentOS 6 - but how did they do it? > > Question: What special configuration is required for either 1) PXE or > 2) the DHCP server?
I just cloned the 5.6 install, and it worked.
Well, kinda. You may have seen, or missed, the thread a couple weeks ago, about this: we do have a local repository, and comps.xml was missing. Then, having now switched to my new workstation, I found that window manager names changes (like KDE and Gnome), so they weren't installed, and for some reason, xorg was not a prerequisite. OO.o, btw, has had a group name change as well.
I fail to see how your repository problem is related to my Kickstart PXE/NFS problem. We can install CentOS 6 (no Kickstart) without problems using PXE. It's the NFS-mounting of the Kickstart-file which fails. What I'd love to learn is how others have made NFS/Kickstart work...
/Ole
On Wed, 20 Jul 2011, Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
I fail to see how your repository problem is related to my Kickstart PXE/NFS problem. We can install CentOS 6 (no Kickstart) without problems using PXE. It's the NFS-mounting of the Kickstart-file which fails. What I'd love to learn is how others have made NFS/Kickstart work...
Is CentOS 6 assuming NFSv4 by default perhaps?
Worth doing a tcpdump on your NFS server to see?
jh
On Wed, 20 Jul 2011, John Hodrien wrote:
To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org From: John Hodrien J.H.Hodrien@leeds.ac.uk Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS 6 PXE boot:Unable to download the kickstart file
On Wed, 20 Jul 2011, Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
I fail to see how your repository problem is related to my Kickstart PXE/NFS problem. We can install CentOS 6 (no Kickstart) without problems using PXE. It's the NFS-mounting of the Kickstart-file which fails. What I'd love to learn is how others have made NFS/Kickstart work...
Is CentOS 6 assuming NFSv4 by default perhaps?
Worth doing a tcpdump on your NFS server to see?
Yes. Also Wireshark GUI is your friend running on the NFS server, if you have a cutdown desktop to use it from?
That should give you some indication in real time of the attempt to access the NFS server from your various clients.
Kind Regards,
Keith Roberts
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On 07/20/2011 05:18 PM, John Hodrien wrote:
On Wed, 20 Jul 2011, Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
I fail to see how your repository problem is related to my Kickstart PXE/NFS problem. We can install CentOS 6 (no Kickstart) without problems using PXE. It's the NFS-mounting of the Kickstart-file which fails. What I'd love to learn is how others have made NFS/Kickstart work...
Is CentOS 6 assuming NFSv4 by default perhaps?
According to the RHEL 6.0 Release Notes it is:
"Mounting a file system via NFS now defaults to NFSv4."
Regards, Patrick
On 07/20/2011 05:15 PM, Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
What I'd love to learn is how others have made NFS/Kickstart work...
I download the kickstart file via http:
append initrd=initrd_c60_x86_64.img ks=http://172.20.0.1/linux/c6_x86_64.ks nofb
Works for CentOS 5 and 6.
Mogens
On Thu, 21 Jul 2011, Mogens Kjaer wrote:
To: centos@centos.org From: Mogens Kjaer mk@lemo.dk Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS 6 PXE boot:Unable to download the kickstart file
On 07/20/2011 05:15 PM, Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
What I'd love to learn is how others have made NFS/Kickstart work...
I download the kickstart file via http:
append initrd=initrd_c60_x86_64.img ks=http://172.20.0.1/linux/c6_x86_64.ks nofb
Works for CentOS 5 and 6.
OK Mogens.
That seems to be a reliable option to use across a network. What's all the fuss about NFS, when it's trivial to create a temporary directory in the Apache DocumentRoot and put the ks file there?
Kind Regards,
Keith Roberts
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Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
We have CentOS 6 manual installation working by PXE booting from a RHEL5.6 PXE/TFTP server. However, when we add a Kickstart file in the PXE configuration:
kernel CentOS-6-i386/vmlinuz append load_ramdisk=1 initrd=CentOS-6-i386/initrd.img networkks=nfs:130.226.86.4:/u/rpm/kickstart/ks-centos-6-clean-i386.cfg
then the CentOS 6 client install reports "Unable to download the kickstart file". The console 3 reports "failed to mount nfs source".
This problem has been resolved. A silly editing error replacing 5->6 also changed the IP-address :-( With the correct IP-address Kickstart works correctly with an NFSv3 server as shown above. No need to upgrade to NFSv4 and Kerberos :-)
For the record, it is in fact possible to add NFS mount options to the PXE APPEND line, as documented in http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda_Boot_Options. To explicitly force an NFSv3 mount you may add the following NFS mount option: ks=nfs:nfsvers=3:servername:filename
Thanks again for everybody's help. /Ole
----- Original Message ----- | Ole Holm Nielsen wrote: | > We have CentOS 6 manual installation working by PXE booting from a | > RHEL5.6 | > PXE/TFTP server. However, when we add a Kickstart file in the PXE | > configuration: | > | > kernel CentOS-6-i386/vmlinuz | > append load_ramdisk=1 initrd=CentOS-6-i386/initrd.img network | > ks=nfs:130.226.86.4:/u/rpm/kickstart/ks-centos-6-clean-i386.cfg | > | > then the CentOS 6 client install reports "Unable to download the | > kickstart file". | > The console 3 reports "failed to mount nfs source". | | This problem has been resolved. A silly editing error replacing 5->6 | also | changed the IP-address :-( With the correct IP-address Kickstart works | correctly with an NFSv3 server as shown above. No need to upgrade to | NFSv4 | and Kerberos :-) | | For the record, it is in fact possible to add NFS mount options to the | PXE | APPEND line, as documented in | http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda_Boot_Options. | To explicitly force an NFSv3 mount you may add the following NFS mount | option: | ks=nfs:nfsvers=3:servername:filename | | Thanks again for everybody's help. | /Ole | _______________________________________________ | CentOS mailing list | CentOS@centos.org | http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
I would still push for a move to HTTP. I manage about 1500 GNU/Linux, CentOS 5 workstations and about 3 months ago moved away from NFS and to HTTP. This was for additional security, NFSv3 being less secure than NFSv4, as well as for scalability reasons.
After making the move from NFS to HTTP I found that my installations went from 20 minutes for a @core installation to ~5 minutes for the same install. I am also now able to do more 'interesting' things like heavy HTTP caching, load balancing as well as other things to "tune" my installation path. You really should consider it if you've got the resources. ;)
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