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For RHEL 7 see 27.3. Kickstart Syntax Reference Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 - Red Hat Customer Portal
For RHEL 8/CentOs8 Kickstart commands and options reference -- CentOS Docs Site
Create a new entry in /etc/grub.conf to pass Anaconda's command line options from GRUB. The following table describes some of the Anaconda command line options:
| lowres | Force GUI installer to run at 640x480. |
| vnc | Enable VNC-based installation. You will need to connect to the machine using a VNC client application. |
| vncpassword=<password> | Enable a password for the VNC connection. This will prevent someone from inadvertantly connecting to the VNC-based installation. Requires 'vnc' option to be specified as well. |
| vncconnect=<hostip>[:<port>] | Once installation is up and running, connect to the VNC client on <hostip> address (you can also use DNS if you are DHCP segment), and optionally use port <port>. Requires 'vnc' option to be specified as well. |
| ks=cdrom: | Kickstart from CDROM |
| ks=nfs:<path> | Kickstart from NFS. |
| ks=<url> | Kickstart via HTTP. |
| ks=hd:<dev> | Kickstart via harddrive (dev = 'hda1', for example) |
| ks=file:<path> | Kickstart from a file (path = 'fd0/ks.cfg') |
| ks=ftp://<path> | Kickstart from FTP. |
| ks=http://<path> | Kickstart from HTTP. |
| lang=<lang> | Language to use for the installation. This should be a language which is valid to be used with the 'lang' kickstart command. |
| keymap=<keymap> | Keyboard layout to use. Valid values are those which can be used for the 'keyboard' kickstart command. |
| ip=<ip> | IP to use for a network installation, use 'dhcp' for DHCP. |
| netmask=<nm> | Netmask to use for a network installation. |
| gateway=<gw> | Gateway to use for a network installation. |
| dns=<dns> | Comma separated list of nameservers to use for a network installation. |
| method=nfs:<path> | Use <path> for an NFS installation. |
| method=http://<path> | Use <path> for an HTTP installation |
| method=ftp://<path> | Use <path> for an FTP installation |
| method=hd://<dev>/<path> | Use <path> on
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| method=cdrom | Do a CDROM based installation. |
The first step is to copy the initrd.img (RAM disk) and vmlinuz (kernel) files from the installation source (isolinux directory) to the /boot directory of the target remote server. You will need to be root to do this. You can find the isolinux directory in the root directory of the first Fedora CD.
NoteYou may need to mount the .iso to get to these files.
You can also pre-set those parameters in config file:
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (2.6.9-5.ELsmp)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-5.ELsmp ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-5.ELsmp.img
title Remote Install
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz_remote lang=en_US keymap=us method=http://<your_domain>/<path_to_tree>/i386/tree vnc vncconnect=<observing ip> ip=dhcp
initrd /initrd_remote.img
We can reduce the amount of Anaconda options passed when performing a remote kickstart since most of the information Anaconda needs is already in the kickstart configuration:
title Remote Install
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz_remote ks=http://<domain>/<path_to_file>/<kickstart_config> vnc vncconnect=<observing_ip>
initrd /initrd_remote.img
Barebone demo remote kickstart configuration for RHEL6
# Barebones demo remote kickstart configuration # install network --bootproto dhcp url --url http://<domain>/<path_to_file>/i386/tree lang en_US langsupport --default en_US en_US keyboard us mouse none zerombr yes clearpart --all part pv.01 --size=1000 --grow part /boot --fstype=ext3 --size=200 part swap --size=1000 --maxsize=2000 volgroup myvg pv.01 logvol / --vgname=myvg --name=rootvol --size=1000 --grow bootloader --location mbr timezone America/New_York auth --enablemd5 --enableshadow rootpw --iscrypted <encryptedpasswdstring> selinux --permissive reboot firewall --enabled --http --ssh --smtp skipx %packages --resolvedeps @ Base %post # MOTD echo << /etc/motd echo "Remote kickstart on $(date +'%Y-%m-%d')" << /etc/motd echo << /etc/motdNote
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Administration Guide contains an in-depth discussion of kickstart. You can insert the root password in a kickstart file as clear text or you can specify an encrypted password. To use an unencrypted password in the kickstart configuration file, use the rootpw keyword, followed by the clear text password:rootpw mypasswdIf you would rather use an encrypted password, usegrub-md5-cryptor theopensslpasswd module to generate MD5-hashed passwords. For example, to generate an encrypted password using openssl enter the following,openssl passwd -1 -salt "shaker" "your_password"Entries in the /etc/shadow file also contain MD5-hashed passwords. Now add the --iscrypted option and encrypted password to the kickstart file as follows:rootpw --iscrypted encryptedpasswdstring
Save the new grub.conf file without restarting the remote server. GRUB offers a safety precaution that we will take advantage of in the next section.
GRUB boots one or more entries when a default boot entry fails. Usually the fallback entries are kernel entries that the system expects will boot successfully in case we boot to a kernel that does not agree with the system. For a remote install, GRUB only needs to set the default entry and boot to it once.
Rather then modifying the grub.conf file, save the default entry with the GRUB command line tool and then boot to it. As root, enter the command 'grub' from the command line. This will load a bash-like grub tool. GRUB entries are indexed from 0. If the remote install is the second entry in grub.conf, then enter the following commands:
grub> savedefault --default=1 --once grub> quit
GRUB will now only boot to the remote install entry one time.
grub> help savedefault savedefault: savedefault [--stage2=STAGE2_FILE] [--default=DEFAULT] [--once] Save DEFAULT as the default boot entry in STAGE2_FILE. If '--once' is specified, the default is reset after the next reboot.
So when we save the default grub entry to boot to, the --once flag will reset the default after the next reboot. This helps if the boot was not successful so we can go back to a known good boot entry.
NoteResist the temptation to use GRUB's fallback mechanism as a substitute for testing your install. It's always a good idea to test your remote install in an environment where you are physically present. Your remote install could be waiting for an answer needed for the second stage that will never be provided if you have a misspelled or missing argument. Debugging these types of errors is much easier in a physically available testing environment.
Listing 2. Modified syslinux.cfg File
default ks prompt 1 timeout 60 display custom.msg F1 boot.msg F2 options.msg F3 general.msg F4 param.msg F5 rescue.msg F7 custom.msg label linux kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img lang= devfs=nomount \ ramdisk_size=9216 label text kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img lang= text devfs=nomount \ ramdisk_size=9216 label expert kernel vmlinuz append expert initrd=initrd.img lang= \ devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=9216 label ks kernel vmlinuz append text ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg initrd=initrd.img \ lang= devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=9216 label nofb kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img lang= devfs=nomount \ nofb ramdisk_size=9216 label lowres kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img lang= lowres \ devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=9216
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