[CentOS] CentOS 6 PXE boot: Unable to download the kickstart file

Wed Jul 20 20:55:49 UTC 2011
Ljubomir Ljubojevic <office at plnet.rs>

Ole Holm Nielsen wrote:
> Patrick Lists 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."
> 
> Yes, this sounds like the correct explanation!  Our RHEL5.6 PXE/TFTP/NFS
> server is certainly configured for NFSv3.  I haven't explored the NFSv4
> approach though.
> 
> How can we tweak the CentOS6 Kickstart installation to explicitly
> request an NFSv3 service in the PXE config file:
> 
>      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
> 
> To rephrase my question: Where do we find documentation for the vmlinuz
> append flags shown above, in particular documentation of the ks=... flags?
> 
> Hopefully there'll be some way to force an NFSv3 mount in stead of the
> default NFSv4?  Or perhaps we need to use http: and stop using nfs: with
> CentOS6?

I would suggest using NFSv4 on all of your servers. It needs only one 
port open on the firewall, tcp 2049 and I think it is better solution 
security wise (if I remember correctly).

I started to use NFSv4 from the start on the CentOS 5.x and never had 
any problems. Why not upgrade when opportunity presented it self.

-- 

Ljubomir Ljubojevic
(Love is in the Air)
PL Computers
Serbia, Europe

Google is the Mother, Google is the Father, and traceroute is your
trusty Spiderman...
StarOS, Mikrotik and CentOS/RHEL/Linux consultant