Kickstart installation

लिनक्स संबंधी सभी डाउन लॉड्‍स के लिए निम्न लिंक क्लिक करें:

mylinuxdownloads.blogspot.com

हिन्दी लिनक्स ब्लॉग का एड्रेस:

linuxinhindi.blogspot.com

Kickstart Installation:Server End

Setting up install server for network installations

Before working with Kickstart files we should learn to prepare the install server, from where the clients will receive the operating system files. If you have LAN connectivity from your client computer to that computer which has around 3.5 GB of free disk space and offers FTP or NFS or Web service, then you can make it an install server.

For FTP or HTTP install you will have to copy the files from installation CD to the directory that you make available to the network. As there are four CDs in Red Hat Linux distribution so you have to copy the contents of all the CDs (4 CDs of ELES4 or 1 DVD of ELES5) in the same directory on server’s hard disk. The same is being shown here :

# mkdir /home/redhat

# mount /mnt/cdrom with first CD inserted

If you have DVD drive then you may use the following path, but I shall be using CD in rest of the example.

# mount /media/cdrecorder with first CD inserted

# cp –ar /mnt/cdrom/* /home/redhat

# umount /mnt/cdrom then eject the cd

# mount /mnt/cdrom with second CD inserted

# cp –ar /mnt/cdrom/* /home/redhat

# umount /mnt/cdrom then eject the cd

# mount /mnt/cdrom with third CD inserted

# cp –ar /mnt/cdrom/* /home/redhat

# umount /mnt/cdrom then eject the cd

Simply type y, when it asks to overwrite few files.

Preparing install server using disk images:

Instead of copying all files from the three installation disks, we can copy the images of each of the three disks to our hard disk for NFS or hard disk install. For doing this, insert the CDs one by one and type following commands (assuming that the directory is already created):

# dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/redhat/disk1.iso with first CD inserted

# umount /mnt/cdrom then eject the cd

# dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/redhat/disk2.iso with second CD inserted

# umount /mnt/cdrom then eject the cd

# dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/redhat/disk3.iso with third CD inserted

# umount /mnt/cdrom then eject the cd

Kick start overview

लिनक्स संबंधी सभी डाउन लॉड्‍स के लिए निम्न लिंक क्लिक करें:

mylinuxdownloads.blogspot.com

हिन्दी लिनक्स ब्लॉग का एड्रेस:

linuxinhindi.blogspot.com

Installer boot options:

During the very first screen of installation, we can enter few of the boot options as well. These options are detailed here under:

Option Details

linux noprobe Starts installation without automatic hardware detection, you have to select the drivers for any SATA / SCSI disks or LAN cards.

linux mediacheck Starts installation process with prompt for checking integrity of media.

linux rescue It starts linux in rescue mode that tries to detect current Linux installation.

linux dd Starts installation process with prompt for driver CD.

linux askmethod Starts installation process that allows you to select from local or network installation.

linux updates It starts upgrade from custom disk.

linux lowers It starts installation in low graphic resolution mode, which is called the VGA mode.

Kickstart installations: what and why they are?

Many a times the system administrators like to use automated method of Linux installation for their network computers, especially when they are installing Red Hat Linux on multiple computers. For this need, Red Hat has developed the kickstart installation. With kickstart, the administrators can save lot of time installing and customizing Linux on every computer. With this, we can manage the installation of package groups or even individual RPM packages on each of our computers. For this automation, the administrator has to create one file, which contains all the answers, which are asked generally at the time of installation. Then these files are kept at the central server system for the individual computer systems to read from, during the installation. When we install Red Hat Linux, Anaconda places a default Kickstart file, named anaconda-ks.cfg in /root directory.

Steps in performing Kickstart installation:

Kickstart installation can be performed using local hard disk, local CD ROM or through FTP, NFS or HTTP. For this to happen we must follow the following:

For server end:

1. Make the installation file available (Install server)

For client end:

2. Create a kickstart file

3. Make the kickstart file available over the network or

create one boot media with kickstart file

4. Booting the kickstart installation