Notes on using Kickstart within the CIT framework ================================================= Getting a basic Kickstart going ------------------------------- Make sure the 'diskfull' module was installed. Check to see if the sysarch you want to Kickstart a node with already has integrated Kickstart support. If it does and it is installed properly, cclone should already be able to kickstart nodes for you. If not, the following might help. There is also plenty of Kickstart documentation out there (try the RedHat website Manuals area). - Copy all the files from a Linux distro CD set (that supports kickstart) into a directory that is accessible via nfs, http, etc. from inside the cluster. - Copy the vmlinuz and initrd.img files from the images/pxeboot directory of the distro tree to /tftpboot and name them appropriately (e.g. vmlinuz-kickstart-rh9) - Edit the PXE include file (usually /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/CIT_pxe_include) to add a kickstart target. If you want to integrate nicely with cclone, make sure the kickstart target matches the 'kstarget' configuration parameter in CConf.pm, otherwise you'll need to specify the kickstart target you want to boot manually on the cclone command line. (See the sample in base/misc/CIT_pxe_include if you don't have one). A key part of this is the 'ks=' parameter passed on the kernel command line because it specifices the location of the Kickstart config file. - If you have Kickstart config file already, then make sure it's in the place you said it was in the PXE include file. If you don't have one, try using a sample one from a sysarch that supports Kickstart already (like rhews-3.0-i386) and edit it with the right paths and such. To fully integrate with the Kickstart support in CIT, use one of the %post install section template(s) for the %post install section of your Kickstart config (which is usually blank). Another way to get Kickstart config file is to install a node from CD and then look at /root/anaconda-ks.cfg. This is a Kickstart config for what you just installed, but it won't be able to do a fully automated install without tweaking (see Kickstart docs on the Internet!). - Set the sysarch for the node appropriately to match what you want to kickstart and how you configured your kickstart targets. If you are just doing quick and dirty, just us the --kstarget parameter to cclone. - Open a console window the node you want to play with - 'cclone --ks ' to get it started - Watch the console. If your kickstart config file isn't quite right, there will be work to do on the console possibly (like selecting packages and such). The console may also indicate errors in your PXE include file. Note that even without any support for a sysarch, proper generation of the kickstart target in the PXE include file and usage of a CIT %post install section template will result in custom node configuration files being generated per the node's database entry.