Redhat 6 kickstart install

Kickstart Installations. What are Kickstart Installations? For example, to allow IMAP access through your firewall, specify imap:tcp. Numeric ports can also be specified explicitly; for example, to allow UDP packets on port through, specify udp.

To specify multiple ports, separate them by commas. Determine whether the firstboot starts the first time the system is booted.

If enabled, the firstboot package must be installed. If not specified, this option is disabled by default. This mode enables the language, mouse, keyboard, root password, security level, and time zone configuration options in addition to the default ones. Creates a new user group on the system. If a group with the given name or GID already exists, this command will fail. In addition, the user command can be used to create a new group for the newly created user.

If not provided, defaults to the next available non-system GID. Halt the system after the installation has successfully completed. This is similar to a manual installation, where anaconda displays a message and waits for the user to press a key before rebooting. During a kickstart installation, if no completion method is specified, this option is used as the default.

The halt option is equivalent to the shutdown -h command. For other completion methods, refer to the poweroff , reboot , and shutdown kickstart options. Causes the installer to ignore the specified disks. This is useful if you use autopartition and want to be sure that some disks are ignored. For example, without ignoredisk , attempting to deploy on a SAN-cluster the kickstart would fail, as the installer detects passive paths to the SAN that return no partition table.

Multipath devices that use LVM are not assembled until after anaconda has parsed the kickstart file. Therefore, you cannot specify these devices in the format dm-uuid-mpath. All other disks are ignored. For example, to use disk sda during installation and ignore all other disks:. Tells the system to install a fresh system rather than upgrade an existing system. This is the default mode. The install command and the installation method command must be on separate lines.

Directory containing the variant directory of the installation tree. You can only specify one URL. Perform an interactive installation, but use the information in the kickstart file to provide defaults. During the installation, anaconda still prompts you at every stage.

Either accept the values from the kickstart file by clicking Next or change the values and click Next to continue. Refer also to the autostep command. Specifies additional iSCSI storage to be attached during installation. If you use the iscsi parameter, you must also assign a name to the iSCSI node, using the iscsiname parameter earlier in the kickstart file.

Anaconda automatically detects and uses disks configured in BIOS or firmware and no special configuration is necessary in the kickstart file. If you must use the iscsi parameter, ensure that networking is activated at the beginning of the installation, and that the iscsi parameter appears in the kickstart file before you refer to iSCSI disks with parameters such as clearpart or ignoredisk. Assigns a name to an iSCSI node specified by the iscsi parameter.

If you use the iscsi parameter in your kickstart file, you must specify iscsiname earlier in the kickstart file. Sets the default keyboard type for the system. The available keyboard types are:. Sets the language to use during installation and the default language to use on the installed system. For example, to set the language to English, the kickstart file should contain the following line:. Certain languages for example, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indic languages are not supported during text-mode installation.

If you specify one of these languages with the lang command, the installation process continues in English, but the installed system uses your selection as its default language. The langsupport keyword is deprecated and its use will cause an error message to be printed to the screen and installation to halt. This command controls the error logging of anaconda during installation.

It has no effect on the installed system. Specify the minimum level of messages that appear on tty3. All messages will still be sent to the log file regardless of this level, however. Do not use the dash " - " character in logical volume or volume group names when installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux using Kickstart. If you do, the installation will finish normally, but the character will be removed from all newly created volume and volume group names.

For example, if you create a volume group named volgrp , its name will be changed to volgrp This limitation only applies to new installations. If you are upgrading or reinstalling an existing installation and use the --noformat option described below, dashes used in volume and volume group names will be preserved. To determine the size of the swap partition automatically, use the --recommended option:. The size assigned will be effective but not precisely calibrated for your system.

To determine the size of the swap partition automatically but also allow extra space for your system to hibernate, use the --hibernation option:. The size assigned will be equivalent to the swap space assigned by --recommended plus the amount of RAM on your system.

For the swap sizes assigned by these commands, refer to Section 9. Swap space recommendations were updated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Previously, systems with large amounts of RAM were assigned huge swap spaces.

Consequently, if you are using an earlier version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, swap --recommended will generate larger swap spaces than those described in the Recommended Partitioning Scheme, even on systems with large amounts of RAM. This may negate the need to allow extra space for hibernation.

Valid values are xfs , ext2 , ext3 , ext4 , swap , vfat , hfs , and efi. A usage type defines a variety of tuning parameters to be used when making a filesystem. For this option to work, the filesystem must support the concept of usage types and there must be a configuration file that lists valid types. Specify an integer value here such as do not include the unit. This option must be used in conjunction with the --size and --grow options for logvol.

If you do not specify a passphrase, anaconda uses the default, system-wide passphrase set with the autopart --passphrase command, or stops the installation and prompts you to provide a passphrase if no default is set.

Create the partition first, create the logical volume group, and then create the logical volume. If given, this will force anaconda to run mediacheck on the installation media. Using this approach, it is possible to automate the installation completely, including the boot process.

Procedures in this section assume that you already have a Kickstart file ready in a location accessible from the installation system, as well as boot media or a PXE server which can be used to boot the system and begin the installation.

The procedures are intended as a general reference; some steps differ based on your system's architecture, and not all options are available on all architectures for example, you cannot use PXE boot on IBM Z.

Starting the Kickstart Installation Manually. This section explains how to start a Kickstart installation manually, which means some user interaction adding boot options at the boot: prompt will be required. For architecture-specific instructions, see:. At the boot prompt, specify the inst. In some cases, the inst. For details about boot options and valid syntax, see Chapter 23, Boot Options. The installation begins now, using the options specified in the Kickstart file.

If the Kickstart file is valid and contains all required commands, the installation is completely automated from this point forward. Starting the Kickstart Installation Automatically. The following procedure explains how to completely automate the Kickstart installation, using a network boot PXE server and a properly configured boot loader. If you follow this procedure, you only need to turn on the system; no other interaction will be required from that moment until the installation finishes.

The name of the file and its syntax depends on your system's architecture and hardware:. In this case, add the inst. A sample append line in the configuration file looks similar to the following:. In this file, append the inst. A sample kernel line in the configuration file will look similar to the following:.

Firstboot does not run after a system is installed from a Kickstart file unless a desktop and the X Window System were included in the installation and graphical login was enabled. Either specify a user with the user option in the Kickstart file before installing additional systems from it refer to Section To begin a kickstart installation, you must boot the system from boot media you have made or the Red Hat Enterprise Linux DVD, and enter a special boot command at the boot prompt.

The installation program looks for a kickstart file if the ks command line argument is passed to the kernel. With Driver Disk If you need to use a driver disk with kickstart, specify the dd option as well. For example, if installation requires a kickstart file on a local hard drive and also requires a driver disk, boot the system with:.

Prompt for network configuration in the first stage of installation regardless of installation method. Make kickstart non-interactive. Used for debugging and to generate screenshots. This option should not be used when deploying a system because it may disrupt package installation.