[CentOS] combining kickstart and DVD on a USB thumbdrive

Wed Jan 21 03:35:08 UTC 2009
nate <centos at linuxpowered.net>

Jerry Geis wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am trying to find information on taking a DVD of centos 5.2 x86_64
> and putting it AND my kickstart file on a USB8G thumbdrive.
>
> Note -  I am not INSTALLING  linux on the USB disk just trying to make
> installation media for it. I am not taking just the bootdisk.img file to
> make the USB
> bootable but the entire DVD content on the USB and my kickstart files.
>
> I'd like to just be able to plug in a USB disk that I have made
> that has all the kickstart information and the machine is just setup
> based on WHICHEVER usb thumbdrive in place in the machine.
>
> Is there something out there that explains this that I have not found?

Maybe things have changed in 5.x but I recall some annoying issues
with having a USB device plugged in during kickstart as the kernel
would sometimes map that device as sda and that could screw up my
partitioning scheme. I think it would be easier to put the kickstart
file on the DVD and have a different DVD for whatever purpose you
want, unless you anticipate needing to change the kickstart file
frequently.

Same goes for having external SCSI or fiber channel devices connected
during kickstart, I always disconnect all block devices other than
the boot device whenever possible when using kickstart.

That is assuming your looking for a fully automated installer, vs
loading kickstart with minimal configs and doing a bunch of manual
work during installation.

nate