[CentOS] Re: centos and http

Tue May 29 02:38:22 UTC 2007
MrKiwi <mrkiwi at gmail.com>

>> Dave wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>>    Thanks for your reply. Yah i do have apache running, your idea 
>>> certainly would make things easier. How did you set up the http area? 
>>> And where in it do you put the kickstart? I'd like this area to be 
>>> accessible to my local network only, internet users shouldn't be able 
>>> to access it or better yet even know it's there.
>>> Thanks.
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
>> i downloaded the centos5 iso, then;
>>
>> mount /path/to/CentOS-5.0-i386-bin-DVD.iso var/www/html/cd/0 -o loop,ro
>>
>> This gives you access to the install stuff at 
>> http://your.server.ip/cd/0 (i have centos4 at /cd/1 and other isos at 
>> /cd/2 and /cd/3 - keep your paths short to save typing!)
>>
>> Then you have to host the kickstart file too - i put mine at the root 
>> (/var/www/html ) but you may find it tidier to put it at 
>> /var/www/html/ks or similar.
>>
>> Then (bc you want to limit access) in your httpd.conf you will need a 
>> section like this (someone please correct this if it's wrong)
>>
>> <Location /ks>
>> order deny,allow
>>         deny from all
>> allow from 127.0.0.1 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
>> </Location>
>> <Location /cd>
>> allow from 127.0.0.1 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
>> order deny,allow
>>         deny from all
>> </Location>
>>
>> Then you're ready to boot from any bootable v5 cd - i use cd 1 of 6 
>> from the CentOS5 set of CD isos
>>
>> At the prompt i think it is
>> #linux ks=http://your.ip/ks/whatever.cfg
>>
>> whatever.cfg would look like this;
>>
>> Note: Edit a least the following lines;
>> url, rootpw, timezone
>>
>> You may want to grab anaconda.cfg from the root folder of your most 
>> recently installed CentOS5 installation and compare the lines (esp 
>> rootpw and timezone to get the spelling right)
>>
>> You may also want to comment out rootpw and the partition lines so 
>> that you are prompted to fill these in by hand.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> MrKiwi
>>
>>
>> #========================================================
>> # Kickstart file automatically generated by anaconda.
>>
>> install
>> url --url http://your.ip/cd/0
>> lang en_US.UTF-8
>> keyboard us
>> network --device eth0 --bootproto dhcp
>> rootpw --iscrypted blahblahblah
>> firewall --enabled --port=22:tcp
>> authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
>> selinux --disabled
>> timezone Pacific/Auckland
>> bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda
>> # The following is the partition information you requested
>> # Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed
>> # here so unless you clear all partitions first, this is
>> # not guaranteed to work
>> clearpart --linux --drives=sda
>> part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100 --ondisk=sda
>> part pv.9 --size=0 --grow --ondisk=sda
>> volgroup VolGroup00 --pesize=32768 pv.9
>> logvol / --fstype ext3 --name=LogVol00 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=1024 
>> --grow
>> logvol swap --fstype swap --name=LogVol01 --vgname=VolGroup00 
>> --size=1000 --grow --maxsize=1984
>>
>> %packages
>> @base
>> @core
>> @editors
>> #========================================================
>>
>>
> Dave wrote:
> Hi,
>    Thanks for your informative reply. I'll definitely go for that. One 
> thing, my web server area doesn't have 4+gb of room on it for this dvd. 
> What i'd like to do is have the mount point in /var/www/html/cd/0 like 
> you do, but 0 is a symlink to another drive in this case 
> /mnt/dvd-centos5, that's where the dvd will be mounted. But i don't 
> think apache will follow symlinks in this case, have you ever tried this?
> Thanks.
> Dave.
> 
If the section <location /cd> contains the directive
Options FollowSymLinks
then it will (provided the perms allow this)

There may be a simpler way - quicker too;

Just setup as i mentioned but rather than mount the iso on 
/cd/0 , mount like this;

mount /mnt/dvd-centos5 /var/www/html/cd/0

You can mount the centos stuff in multiple places too - i 
think maybe "options ro" may make this faster? as the 
webserver will only ever be reading the rpms etc from the 
centos5 area.

Even simpler;

If the centos data is its own partition/drive, just mount it 
right in the html folder from the get-go;

mount /dev/hdb1 /var/www/html/cd/0

Regards,

MrKiwi

ps - pls make sure you reply to the list so everyone can 
benefit from the solution, and bottom post too.