  RedHat Linux KickStart HOWTO
  Martin Hamilton <martinh@gnu.org>
  v0.2, 11 January 1999

  Archived: 2004-05-17 at the request of the author by Emma Jane Hogbin
  (Technical Review Coodinator). Additional information can be obtained
  from: Red Hat Linux Customization Guide <http://www.red­
  hat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/custom-guide/part-install-
  info.html>

  This HOWTO briefly describes how to use the RedHat Linux KickStart
  system to rapidly install large numbers of identical Linux boxes.  For
  advanced users, we describe how to modify the KickStart installation
  procedure to do your own thing, and give a quick guide to building RPM
  packages of your own.

  ______________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents


  1. Copyright

  2. Homepage

  3. Introduction

  4. Prerequisites

  5. Setting up a boot floppy

  6. The KickStart config file

     6.1 System info
     6.2 Packages to install
     6.3 Post-installation shell commands

  7. Installation itself

  8. Mounting the boot/supp disks

  9. Modifying the RedHat installer

  10. FAQs/Wish list

  11. Credits

  12. Appendix A - Configuring BOOTP/DHCP and NFS

  13. Appendix B - Making your own RPMs

  14. Appendix C - Munging your own RPMs into the distribution



  ______________________________________________________________________



  1.  Copyright


  Copyright (c) 1998 Martin Hamilton, All rights reserved.  This is free
  documentware; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms
  of version 2 or later of the GNU General Public License
  <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html>.
  2.  Homepage


  If you got this document from a Linux HOWTO mirror site or a CD-ROM,
  you might want to check back to the KickStart HOWTO home page
  <http://wwwcache.ja.net/dev/kickstart/> to see if there's a newer
  version around.



  3.  Introduction


  RedHat Linux version 5 comes with a a little-known (and until now, not
  hugely documented) feature called KickStart.  This lets you automate
  most/all of a RedHat Linux installation, including:



  ·  Language selection

  ·  Network configuration and distribution source selection

  ·  Keyboard selection

  ·  Boot loader installation (e.g. lilo)

  ·  Disk partitioning and filesystem creation

  ·  Mouse selection

  ·  X Window system server configuration

  ·  Timezone selection

  ·  Selection of an (initial) root password

  ·  Which packages to install


  Eagle eyed RedHat users will probably have realised by now that these
  are essentially the main steps involved in the manual installation of
  a RedHat Linux system.  KickStart makes it possible for you to script
  the regular installation process, by putting the information you would
  normally type at the keyboard into a configuration file.


  But wait - there's more :-)


  Having finished the normal installation process, KickStart also lets
  you specify a list of shell level commands which you would like to be
  executed.  This means that you can automatically install extra local
  software not distributed as part of RedHat Linux (yes, there are even
  more free software programs than the ones you get with the RedHat
  distribution.  Some can't be distributed by RedHat on legal grounds,
  e.g. the ssh and PGP encryption systems) and carry out any tidying up
  you may need to do in order to get a fully operational system.



  4.  Prerequisites


  There are two approaches to a KickStart install - one is to simply
  copy your KickStart configuration file to a RedHat boot floppy.  The
  other is to use a regular boot floppy and get your KickStart config
  file off the network.


  In both cases, you'll need:


  1. Intel (i386) class machines - KickStart appears to only work on
     these at the time of writing.

  2. KickStart config file - we'll talk about this in the next section.

  3. RedHat boot disk - preferably from the updates directory, to take
     advantage of any fixes/driver updates.

  4. DNS entries for the IP addresses you'll be using - optional, but
     will stop the installation from prompting you for your machine's
     domain name.


  If you want to fetch your config file over the network, you'll need to
  export it via NFS - this is the only access method supported at the
  moment.  The config file lets you specify a different NFS server to
  fetch the RedHat distribution itself from.


  You can configure a static IP address for your machine - e.g. a
  special one reserved for KickStart installations.  Alternatively, if
  you don't want to hard code an IP address in the config file you can
  tell KickStart to use a BOOTP/DHCP server to fetch this.  Some servers
  will allocate new addresses in a given range automatically, e.g. the
  CMU BOOTP server with dynamic addressing extensions
  <ftp://ftp.ntplx.net/pub/networking/bootp>.


  More information on NFS and BOOTP/DHCP is in Appendix A.



  5.  Setting up a boot floppy


  Essentially, all you have to do is copy your KickStart config file to
  /ks.cfg on the RedHat boot floppy, e.g.



         mcopy ks.cfg a:



  However - the RedHat boot floppy is pretty full, and you may find that
  you have to delete some of the other files to make room for the
  KickStart config file.  I was able to make enough room for mine by
  deleting the various message files normally displayed by the SYSLINUX
  boot loader, e.g.

         mdel a:\*.msg



  Another approach would be to throw away the drivers for some of the
  hardware you don't have - see the section on modifying the boot floppy
  below.


  You may also want to edit syslinux.cfg, the SYSLINUX config file.
  This also lives in the top level directory of the RedHat boot floppy.
  For instance, the following syslinux.cfg will cause KickStart mode to
  be entered into automatically as the machine boots up, without the
  normal delay:



         default ks
         prompt 0
         label ks
           kernel vmlinuz
           append ks=floppy initrd=initrd.img



  Note that you almost probably want to base your boot and supplementary
  floppies on the most recent disk images available in the updates/i386
  on your local RedHat mirror site.  Older images may be buggy or have
  driver support for less hardware.



  6.  The KickStart config file


  There are three main sections to the config file:



  1. System info, e.g. disk partitioning and network config

  2. RedHat packages to install

  3. Post-installation shell commands to run


  There are some other possibilities which we won't talk about here, but
  might work.  For more information check out the sample KickStart
  config in misc/src/install/ks.samp and doc/README.ks under the top
  level i386 RedHat distribution directory on your CD-ROM or local
  RedHat mirror site.



  6.1.  System info


  The available directives which I've been using are:

     lang
        Language configuration, e.g. for English


          lang en



     network
        Network configuration, e.g. to use BOOTP/DHCP


          network --bootp



     nfs
        NFS server and directory to install from, e.g.


          nfs --server chicken.swedish-chef.org /mnt/cdrom



     to use the NFS server chicken.swedish-chef.org and try to mount the
     RedHat distribution from the directory /mnt/cdrom.

     keyboard
        Select keyboard type, e.g. for UK keyboards


          keyboard uk



     zerombr
        Clear the Master Boot Record - removes any existing operating
        system boot loader from your disk

     clearpart
        Clear existing partitions - e.g. to remove all existing disk
        partitions prior to installation


          clearpart --all



     part
        Partition the disk, e.g. to make a root filesystem of 500MB


          part / --size 500



     install
        Make a fresh installation of RedHat Linux.


     mouse
        Set the mouse being used, e.g. for a PS/2 or compatible "bus
        mouse"


          mouse ps/2



     timezone
        Set the timezone, e.g. for local time in the UK


          timezone --utc Europe/London



     rootpw
        Set the initial root password, based on a previously derived
        encrypted password


          rootpw --iscrypted XaacoeGPmf/A.



     lilo
        Install the LILO boot loader, e.g. in the Master Boot Record


          lilo --location mbr



     %packages
        Packages to install - see below.

     %post
        Post-installation shell commands - see below.


  Note that the directory where KickStart is looking for the RedHat
  distribution should have a subdirectory RedHat, which contains the
  RedHat distribution tree for the platform in question.  In the above
  example, we should see something like the following files and
  directories:



       /mnt/cdrom/RedHat
       /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/base
       /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/contents
       /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/i386
       /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/instimage
       /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS
       /mnt/cdrom/RPM-PGP-KEY



  If you're installing off a CD-ROM rather than off the network, the
  contents should look something like this:



       RedHat
       RedHat/base
       RedHat/contents
       RedHat/i386
       RedHat/instimage
       RedHat/RPMS
       RPM-PGP-KEY



  If you have the RedHat distribution for multiple architectures (e.g.
  on an NFS server - they're too big to fit more than one architecture's
  version onto a single CD-ROM), you'll notice that each distribution
  has the same files and directories under a subdirectory, e.g.



       alpha/RPM-PGP-KEY
       i386/RPM-PGP-KEY
       sparc/RPM-PGP-KEY



  There should be a file architecture/Redhat/architecture, e.g.
  i386/Redhat/i386.


  If you want to create your own encrypted passwords, it's very easy
  using Perl, e.g.



       % perl -e 'print crypt("schmurrdegurr", "Xa") . "\n";'p



  Other options (or mooted options), which I've not tried:



     cdrom
        Install off CD-ROM rather than network.

     device
        Explicitly declare device details, e.g.


          device ethernet 3c509 --opts "io=0x330, irq=7"



     Alternative values of device include scsi for SCSI controllers and
     cdrom for proprietary CD-ROM drives.

     upgrade
        Upgrade an existing installation rather than make a fresh
        installation.

     xconfig
        Configure X Window server, graphics card and monitor.  e.g.


          xconfig --server "Mach64" --monitor "tatung cm14uhe"



  I've not delved too deeply into this last one, because I'm not ever
  planning to run X on the console of any of my KickStarted machines.
  I'm told that running xconfig within KickStart itself is a bit flaky,
  but the same functionality is also available from the command line via
  Xconfigurator - so you might be best off leaving this to the post-
  installation script.


  Here's how this first part of a KickStart config file looks when we
  put all the bits together:



       lang en
       network --static --ip 198.168.254.253 --netmask 255.255.255.0
         --gateway 198.168.254.1 --nameserver 198.168.254.2
       nfs --server chicken.swedish-chef.org /mnt/cdrom
       keyboard uk
       zerombr yes
       clearpart --all
       part / --size 500
       part swap --size 120
       install
       mouse ps/2
       timezone --utc Europe/London
       rootpw --iscrypted XaacoeGPmf/A.
       lilo --location mbr



  Note that some of the RedHat documentation refers to an invocation of
  the network directive which doesn't actually work in practice: network
  --option.  The correct invocation is to put network followed by
  --static, --bootp or --dhcp.  Be aware that the BOOTP and DHCP options
  are different - to the extent that they even use different code.


  You can add the --grow parameter to a part directive to indicate that
  it's OK to grow the partition beyond the size you specify.  It
  probably only makes sense to have one partition tagged with --grow.



  6.2.  Packages to install


  The start of the packages section of the KickStart config file is
  indicated by the presence of a %packages directive on a line of its
  own.  This is followed by one or both of two types of package
  specifier - individual packages may be installed by giving the name of
  their RPM (excluding the version and platform information), and groups
  of packages may be installed by giving their group name.


  Here's a sample packages section for a KickStart config file:



       %packages
       @ Base
       netkit-base
       bind-utils
       ncftp
       rdate
       tcp_wrappers
       traceroute
       cmu-snmp



  So, what are these groups ?  Well, there are a number of groups
  defined by default in a file called base/comps under the RedHat
  distribution's top level directory.  Here are the ones which were
  current at the time of writing:



  ·  Base

  ·  Printer Support

  ·  X Window System

  ·  Mail/WWW/News Tools

  ·  DOS/Windows Connectivity

  ·  File Managers

  ·  Graphics Manipulation

  ·  X Games

  ·  Console Games

  ·  X multimedia support

  ·  Console Multimedia

  ·  Print Server

  ·  Networked Workstation

  ·  Dialup Workstation

  ·  News Server

  ·  NFS Server

  ·  SMB (Samba) Connectivity

  ·  IPX/Netware(tm) Connectivity

  ·  Anonymous FTP/Gopher Server

  ·  Web Server

  ·  DNS Name Server

  ·  Postgres (SQL) Server

  ·  Network Management Workstation

  ·  TeX Document Formatting

  ·  Emacs

  ·  Emacs with X windows

  ·  C Development

  ·  Development Libraries

  ·  C++ Development

  ·  X Development

  ·  Extra Documentation


  You'll notice that they correspond to the various configurations which
  you're prompted for during a manual installation.  Note that some of
  the packages in a given package group are duplicated in other groups,
  and that you can install multiple groups of packages without this
  causing problems.  Each group's entry in the comps listing looks
  similar to this:



       0 Extra Documentation
       sag
       lpg
       howto
       faq
       man-pages
       end



  It seems that groups with a 1 next to their name (the first line
  above) are selected for installation by default.  You can customise
  the Linux installation process even further by creating your own
  groups or redefine existing ones by editing this file.



  6.3.  Post-installation shell commands


  This is probably the best feature of all, and something which there is
  no direct equivalent to in the manual installation process.  What we
  can do here is specify a sequence of shell level commands which should
  be executed after the main installation (disk partitioning, package
  installation, and so on) is complete.


  The beginning of this section is signified by the %post directive in
  the KickStart config file.  In what follows you can take advantage of
  all of the utilities which have been installed on your newly built
  Linux system, e.g.



       %post
       ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d /etc/init.d
       ln -s /etc/rc.d/rc.local /etc/rc.local
       ln -s /usr/bin/md5sum /usr/bin/md5
       ln -s /usr/bin/perl /usr/local/bin/perl
       chmod ug-s /bin/linuxconf
       mkdir /var/tmp/tmp
       perl -spi -e 's!image=/boot/vmlinuz-.*!image=/boot/vmlinuz!' /etc/lilo.conf
       rm /etc/rc.d/rc*.d/*sendmail



  You can also use I/O redirection and here documents:



       cat <<EOF >>/etc/passwd
       squid:*:102:3500:Squid Proxy:/usr/squid:/bin/bash
       EOF

       cat <<EOF >>/etc/group
       cache:x:3500:
       EOF



  Modify the run-time startup scripts:



       cat <<EOF >>/etc/rc.local
       echo 8192 > /proc/sys/kernel/file-max
       echo 32768 > /proc/sys/kernel/inode-max

       [ -x /usr/sbin/sshd ] && /usr/sbin/sshd
       [ -x /usr/sbin/cfd ] && /usr/sbin/cfd

       EOF



  Set up crontab entries:



       cat <<EOF >/tmp/crontab.root
       # Keep the time up to date
       0,15,30,45 * * * * /usr/sbin/ntpdate -s eggtimer 2>&1 >/dev/null
       # Recycle Exim log files
       1 0 * * * /usr/exim/bin/exicyclog
       # Flush the Exim queue
       0,15,30,45 * * * * /usr/exim/bin/exim -q
       EOF

       crontab /tmp/crontab.root
       rm /tmp/crontab.root



  And even install other RPMs which you made yourself:



       rpm -i ftp://chicken.swedish-chef.org/rpms/squid.rpm
       rpm -i ftp://chicken.swedish-chef.org/rpms/ssh.rpm
       rpm -i ftp://chicken.swedish-chef.org/rpms/exim.rpm
       rpm -i ftp://chicken.swedish-chef.org/rpms/cfengine.rpm
       rpm -i ftp://chicken.swedish-chef.org/rpms/linux.rpm

       ssh-keygen -b 1024 -f /etc/ssh_host_key -N ""
       depmod -a



  Note that you can achieve the same effect by making your own RPMs
  containing the commands you want executed - see below for more
  information.  Give them a carefully chosen name and you can force them
  to be installed first (e.g. name starts with 'aaa') or last (e.g.
  name starts with 'zzz').


  Be aware that a less painful way of doing root crontab entries is to
  create them as files in one or more of the directories
  /etc/cron.hourly, /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.weekly and
  /etc/cron.monthly.


  More information about making your own RPMs is available in Appendix
  B.



  7.  Installation itself


  Boot the to-be-installed machine off your RedHat boot floppy as usual,
  but instead of pressing RETURN at the SYSLINUX prompt, type linux ks.


  If you're lucky, this will be all you have to type!


  If you customised your RedHat boot floppy as outlined above, you won't
  even need to do this bit :-)


  Since we're really just automating the normal steps involved in a
  RedHat installation, the normal dialogs may appear if/when KickStart
  gets confused about what to do next.  The most likely case is that
  your network interface won't be detected automatically, and you'll be
  prompted for its IRQ and I/O address space.  KickStart tends to need
  help for ISA bus cards, but detects PCI bus cards automatically.


  You can keep an eye on what KickStart is doing by by switching virtual
  consoles as usual:



  ·  Alt-F1 - installation dialog

  ·  Alt-F2 - shell prompt

  ·  Alt-F3 - install log (messages from install program)

  ·  Alt-F4 - system log (messages from kernel, etc.)

  ·  Alt-F5 - other messages



  8.  Mounting the boot/supp disks


  The RedHat boot disk boot.img is in MS-DOS format, using the SYSLINUX
  program to boot up.  The supplementary disk supp.img is a Linux ext2
  filesystem.  If you have support for the loopback filesystem in your
  Linux kernel, you can mount both of these files in your filesystem and
  hack at them:



       # mkdir -p /mnt/boot /mnt/supp
       # mount -o loop -t msdos boot.img /mnt/boot
       # mount -o loop supp.img /mnt/supp



  Now you should be able to see and manipulate the files on the boot and
  supplementary disk under /mnt/boot and /mnt/supp respectively.  Phew!
  Note that older versions of mount may not be able to handle the -o
  loop option.  In these cases you'll need to explicitly use losetup to
  configure the loopback device for each file, e.g.



       # losetup /dev/loop0 boot.img
       # mount -t msdos /dev/loop0 /mnt/boot


  You might also need to explicitly use the -t ext2 option when mounting
  an ext2 filesystem like the one on the supplementary disk.  But, it
  looks like people with modern Linux distributions shouldn't have to
  worry about this.


  Of course, if you don't want to mess around too much, you can cut a
  corner and manipulate actual floppy disks rather than these floppy
  disk images.  If time is important, you'll probably prefer to use the
  loopback devices, since you can hack around with the disk images
  without incurring the latency associated with a genuine floppy disk
  read/write.



  9.  Modifying the RedHat installer


  If you want to mess around with the installation procedure itself, the
  source code can be found on the RedHat CD-ROM or your local RedHat
  mirror site.  It's in misc/src/install under the i386 distribution top
  level directory.


  If you examine the RedHat boot disk you'll see that, in addition to
  the Linux kernel vmlinuz, there's a large file initrd.img:



       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root          559 May 11 15:48 boot.msg
       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root          668 May 11 15:48 expert.msg
       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root          986 May 11 15:48 general.msg
       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root       968842 May 11 15:48 initrd.img
       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root         1120 May 11 15:48 kickit.msg
       - -r-xr-xr-x   1 root     root         5352 May 11 15:48 ldlinux.sys
       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root          875 May 11 15:48 param.msg
       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root         1239 May 11 15:48 rescue.msg
       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root          402 May 11 15:48 syslinux.cfg
       - -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root       444602 May 11 15:48 vmlinuz



  You guessed it, this is another ext2 filesystem saved as a file - -
  but with a twist.  It's actually compressed as well.  You can
  uncompress it and then mount the result, e.g.



       # gzip -dc /mnt/boot/initrd.img >/tmp/initrd.ext2
       # mkdir /mnt/initrd
       # mount -o loop /tmp/initrd.ext2 /mnt/initrd



  Probably the most important part of this filesystem is the collection
  of loadable kernel modules which are included with the boot disk.  If
  you need to merge in a new version of a driver, you'll need to either
  replace vmlinuz with a new kernel which has this statically linked, or
  replace it in the modules collection.  What's more, you may need to
  throw other modules away to make room.


  The modules collection is the file modules/modules.cgz.  Wondering
  what that might be ?  It's actually a compressed cpio archive, believe
  it or not!  And you thought nobody used cpio any more...  Actually RPM
  itself uses cpio internally, too.  Here's how to hack around with it:



       # gzip -dc /mnt/initrd/modules/modules.cgz >/tmp/modules.cpio
       # cpio -itv <modules.cpio >modules.listing
       # mkdir modules
       # cpio -idumv <../modules.cpio



  I don't believe that there is currently a way under Linux (at least in
  mainstream distributions) to transparently access compressed
  filesystems.  Let me know if you know better!


  If you change anything, remember to:



  1. Use cpio to recreate the archive.  How to do this is left as an
     exercise for the reader...

  2. Use gzip to compress the resulting archive.

  3. Copy it to /mnt/initrd, or wherever you put the uncompressed
     initrd.img archive.

  4. Unmount /mnt/initrd (or whatever you called it).

  5. Compress the new initrd.img using gzip again.

  6. Copy the resulting archive onto the boot disk image -
     /mnt/boot/initrd.img in our example.

  7. Unmount the boot disk image, e.g. /mnt/boot.


  Finally, you can now create new boot floppies using this modified boot
  disk setup, e.g.



       # cat boot.img >/dev/fd0



  10.  FAQs/Wish list


  Q: After KickStart installation, my machine won't boot up.  The BIOS
  complains with a message like Missing operating system.
  A: Sounds like the partition with the root filesystem on isn't
  bootable.  Use fdisk to toggle its bootable status.


  Q: After the floppy boots, I get the message: Error opening files for
  kickstart copy: File exists.


  A: Use a more recent version of boot.img and supp.img - look in the
  updates directory of your local RedHat mirror site.  There was a bug
  in some older versions of these for RedHat 5.1.


  Q: Can you have all outstanding patches (update RPMs) applied
  automatically too ?  How ?


  A1: Copy the RPMs you want installing to the RPMS directory from which
  the installation is going to take place, get rid of the older RPMs,
  and update the file RedHat/base/hdlist with the new RPM details.  See
  Appendix C for a script from Eric Doutreleau to do this for you.  If
  you do this yourself, remember to run genhdlist afterwards!


  A2: Try this Perl script: patchup
  <http://wwwcache.ja.net/dev/patchup/>.  This compares the RPMs your
  system has installed with those in a nominated directory and reports
  on the ones it thinks need updating.  It can even install them for you
  if you trust it to.


  A3: rpm2hml <http://rufus.w3.org/linux/rpm2html/> has a much more
  powerful (12MB of C code vs. a page of Perl!) version of A2.


  Q: A single config file on the install server for all of the clients,
  perhaps as a fallback after trying IPADDR-kickstart ?


  A1: Use the BOOTP/DHCP 'boot file' parameter bf to set the filename.


  A2: Add a a record bf=/kickstart/ks.cfg to the relevant entry in
  /etc/bootptab.

  Q: More flexibility when things go wrong - e.g. prompt for alternate
  locations if distribution not found on CD-ROM.


  A: ?


  Q: Explicit exclusion of packages - e.g. everything apart from
  sendmail.


  A: Rebuild the BASE package without sendmail.


  Q: Choose which services are started automatically on boot-up by the
  run-level scripts under /etc/rc.d/.


  A: The chkconfig utility lets you configure which services are run
  automatically on boot-up.  You can run this in your post-installation
  script section, e.g. to run ypbind in run levels 3, 4 and 5:
       chkconfig --level 345 ypbind on



  and it will start the ypbind level on the 345 level.

  Q: When executing the shell commands in the %post section, bring any
  output up in another virtual console rather than overwriting the main
  screen.  Could be done in the shell commands section using open?.


  A: No problem - do something like this:



         exec >/dev/tty5



  Q: Does the filesystem creation code check for bad blocks ?


  A: If you switch to the virtual console where the filesystem creation
  output is being displayed, you won't see any mention of the


  Q: Can I arrange things so some of my machines are configured
  differently from others ?


  A: You could move the host dependent stuff into the scripted section
  of the KickStart config - e.g. only install a given RPM if on a given
  machine.  It would be useful to have a conditional installation
  feature in the packages section of the config file, e.g. switching on
  architecture, or hostname/domain name/IP address.


  Q: Are there any changes between RedHat 5.1 and 5.2 ?


  A1: Lots of changes in the installer, but mostly bug fixes or cosmetic
  improvements.  No impact on KickStart as far as I can tell - from a
  diff -rcs of the two misc/src/install directories.


  A2: RH5.2 now apparently includes the automatic IP allocation/DHCP
  patches to bootpd, but they have left out the documentation which
  tells you how to use it.

  Q: (How) can you clear a specific partition or partitions ?  e.g. to
  leave /home but zap /.


  A: You can't - yet!


  Q: Can you arrange to have your partitions created across multiple
  drives ?  e.g. / on sda and /home on sdb.



  A: Don't think so - looks like you only get access to the first drive
  from the partitioning tool.


  Q: Is it possible to specify existing partitions to be included in the
  mount table, or is it only possible to specify the creation of new
  partitions that will then be included?


  A: ?


  Q: After running mkkickstart, where is the file it creates?


  A: It doesn't create a file - it dumps the KickStart config to stdout.


  Q: In virtual console 4 (Alt-F4) I get Unable to load NLS charset
  cp437(nls_cp437).  What does this mean ?  Should I be worried ?


  A: Sounds like you're trying to mount a CD-ROM burned with the Joliet
  (Unicode extensions to ISO 9660.  In theory the filenames on the CD-
  ROM might get munched and not make it through to Linux correctly.  In
  practice it doesn't seem to cause any problems - could be a spurious
  dependency ?


  Q: Why am i getting the X Window System installed ? I didn't put it in
  my list of packages.


  A: The XFree86-VGA16 RPM is a 'base' component, and as such always
  gets installed - unless you change the definition of the base class.


  Q: In my post-installation script, can I use the packages which have
  been installed by now to do funky things not possible with the limited
  tools on the floppies ?


  A: Yep - e.g. if you chose to install Perl when you put your KickStart
  config together, almost anything is possible in about five lines :-)



  11.  Credits


  Thanks to Eric Doutreleau for the info about chkconfig, the SYSLINUX
  config file hack, and the Perl script for updating your distribution
  server's RPMs.  Thanks to Robert Kaminsky for extensive
  investigations.  Thanks to Piete Brooks, Flavia Regina Munhoz, Tom
  Toffoli, Bob Robbins, Charlie Brady and Ragen Herrington, for their
  comments and questions.



  12.  Appendix A - Configuring BOOTP/DHCP and NFS


  If you're wondering what on earth this BOOTP and DHCP stuff is, more
  information is available at the DHCP WWW site <http://www.dhcp.org/>.
  NFS is documented separately in detail in the NFS HOWTO, and there's a
  DHCP mini-HOWTO too.  I've tried to provide enough details here to
  help you get started, whilst not treating the topics in depth - let me
  know if you think this is overkill.


  In the BOOTP/DHCP + NFS configuration we're discussing, the KickStart
  config file should be NFS mountable by the machine being installed
  from /kickstart/IPADDR-kickstart on the BOOTP/DHCP server, where
  IPADDR is the IP address of the new machine, e.g.
  /kickstart/198.168.254.254-kickstart for the machine 198.168.254.254.


  You should be able to override this location by returning the bf
  parameter (boot file) in your BOOTP/DHCP response.  It may even be
  possible to have this NFS mounted off another machine entirely.


  To NFS export some directories from an existing Linux box, create the
  file /etc/exports with contents something like:



       /kickstart *.swedish-chef.org(ro,no_root_squash)
       /mnt/cdrom *.swedish-chef.org(ro,no_root_squash)



  Note that if you didn't register the IP addresses you're going to be
  using in the DNS, you may be told to get lost by the NFS server and/or
  the RPC portmapper.  In this you can probably get away with putting IP
  address/netmask pairs in the config files, e.g.



       /kickstart 198.168.254.0/255.255.255.0(ro,no_root_squash)



  and in /etc/hosts.allow:



       ALL: 194.82.103.0/255.255.255.0: ALLOW



  This is because most Linux distributions use TCP wrappers to do access
  control for some or all of the NFS related daemons.  Be aware that the
  /etc/exports syntax tends to be different on other Unix variants - the
  NFS servers bundled with Linux distributions tend to offer a much
  wider range of options than the ones shipped with other versions of
  Unix.

  Be aware that if you include a root password in your KickStart config
  file, or NFS export directories containing sensitive information, you
  should take care to expose this information to as few people as
  possible.  This can be done by making the NFS export permissions as
  fine grained as you can, e.g. by specifying a particular host or
  subnet to export to rather than a whole domain.  If you keep a special
  IP address free for KickStart installations, everything's nice and
  simple, but you'll have to change it later - or reconfigure the
  machine to get its IP address via BOOTP/DHCP.


  Most NFS servers require you to tell mountd and nfsd (on some versions
  of Unix they're prefixed with a rpc.) that the /etc/exports file has
  changed - usually by sending a SIGHUP.  There's often a program or
  script called exportfs, which will do this for you, e.g.



       # exportfs -a



  If you didn't have NFS up and running when this machine was booted,
  the directories may not be exported automatically.  Try rebooting, or
  running the following programs as root:



       # portmap
       # rpc.nfsd
       # rpc.mountd



  As noted, on some systems the rpc. prefix isn't used.  In most modern
  Unix distributions, these programs can be found in the /usr/sbin or
  /usr/libexec directories.  These might not be in your path already,
  e.g. if you used su to become root.  The portmap program is also
  sometimes called rpcbind, e.g. on Solaris, some versions of nfsd
  require a command line argument specifying the number of instances of
  the server to run, and you may find you also need to run another
  daemon called biod.  The above should suffice on most (all?)  Linux
  systems.


  If you're using the CMU BOOTP server with DHCP and dynamic addressing
  extensions referred to earlier, a sample /etc/bootptab entry
  (/etc/bootptab is the normal location of the BOOTP/DHCP configuration
  file) would look something like this:



         .dynamic-1:ip=198.168.254.128:T254=0x30:T250="ds=198.168.254.2:
         dn=swedish-chef.org:sm=255.255.255.0:gw=198.168.254.1:
         dl=0xFFFFFFFF":



  (wrapped for clarity)

  This says to allocate IP addresses dynamically on encountering new
  machines, starting at 198.168.254.128 and continuing for the next 48
  (the hexadecimal value 30) addresses.  Each client will be passed back
  the value of T250.  In this case that sets:



  ·  the DNS server ds to 198.168.254.2

  ·  the domain name dn to swedish-chef.org

  ·  the subnet mask sm to 255.255.255.0

  ·  the default gateway gw to 198.168.254.1

  ·  the lease length dl (how long the address is valid for) to
     "forever"


  There seem to be a number of other versions of this server kicking
  around which do not support dynamic addressing.  For these, you would
  have to list the hardware (typically Ethernet MAC) address of each to-
  be-installed machine in /etc/bootptab, and the entries would look
  something like this:



       bork.swedish-chef.org:ip=198.168.254.128:ha=0000E8188E56:
         ds=198.168.254.2:dn=swedish-chef.org:sm=255.255.255.0:
         gw=198.168.254.1:dl=0xFFFFFFFF":



  (wrapped for clarity)


  Note that the parameter ha corresponds to the hardware address of the
  machine being installed.



  13.  Appendix B - Making your own RPMs


  The RPM package format is already very well documented, particularly
  in the book Maximum RPM by Ed Bailey, which you can download from the
  RPM WWW site <http://www.rpm.org/> - also available from all good book
  stores!  This is just a couple of quick hints for people in a hurry.


  RPM packages are built from a spec file.  This consists (in a similar
  fashion to the KickStart config file) of a recipe of steps that need
  to be taken in order to build the package - it's expected that you'll
  have to build it from source, potentially for multiple platforms, and
  may need to apply patches before compiling.  Once built and installed,
  a binary RPM will be created from the files and directories you
  specify as being associated with the package.  It's important to note
  that RPM has no idea of which files and directories are related to a
  given package - you have to tell it.

  Here's a sample specification for a custom RPM of the Squid WWW cache
  server <http://squid.nlanr.net/>:
       Summary: Squid Web Cache server
       Name: squid
       Version: 1.NOVM.22
       Release: 1
       Copyright: GPL/Harvest
       Group: Networking/Daemons
       Source: squid-1.NOVM.22-src.tar.gz
       Patch: retry-1.NOVM.20.patch
       %description
       This is just a first attempt to package up the Squid Web Cache for easy
       installation on our RedHat Linux servers

       %prep
       %setup
       %build
       configure --prefix=/usr/squid
       perl -spi -e 's!#( -DALLOW_HOSTNAME_UNDERSCORES)!$1!' src/Makefile
       make

       %install
       make install

       %files
       /usr/squid



  Here's how to build this RPM:



       % mkdir -p SOURCES BUILD SRPMS RPMS/i386
       % cp ~/squid-1.NOVM.22-src.tar.gz SOURCES
       % cp ~/retry-1.NOVM.20.patch SOURCES
       % rpm -ba squid-1.NOVM.22+retry-1.spec



  This will automatically create a subdirectory under the BUILD
  directory, into which it'll unpack the source code and then apply the
  patch (there are a number of options available for patching - check
  the book for details).  Now, RPM will automatically build the package
  by running configure and then make, install it using make install, and
  take a snapshot of the files under /usr/squid.  It's the latter which
  will form the binary RPM of the Squid software.


  Note that we can insert arbitrary shell commands into the unpacking,
  building and installing processes, e.g. the call to perl which tweaks
  one of Squid's compile-time parameters.


  The final binary RPM will be left under the RPMS directory in the
  platform specific subdirectory i386.  In this case it will be called
  squid-1.NOVM.22-1.i386.rpm.  Note that the filename is created by
  concatenating the values of the following parameters from the spec
  file: Name, Version and Release - plus the hardware platform in
  question, i386 in this case.  Try to bear this in mind when creating
  your own RPMs, to avoid giving them overly long or painful names!


  It's also worth bearing in mind that you can build RPMs without having
  to rebuild the whole software package, e.g.



       Summary: Linux 2.0.36 kernel + filehandle patch + serial console patch
       Name: linux
       Version: 2.0.36+filehandle+serial_console
       Release: 1
       Copyright: GPL
       Group: Base/Kernel
       Source: linux-2.0.36+filehandle+serial_console.tar.gz
       %description
       This is just a first attempt to package up the Linux kernel with patches
       for installation on our RedHat Linux servers

       %prep
       echo

       %setup
       echo

       %build
       echo

       %install
       echo

       %post
       /sbin/lilo

       %files
       /lib/modules/2.0.36
       /boot/vmlinuz



  In this case we simply create an RPM based on the /boot/vmlinuz file
  and the contents of the directory /lib/modules/2.0.36, and execute
  /sbin/lilo after the package has been installed on a target machine.
  Let me know if you know much neater way of writing the spec file than
  this.



  14.  Appendix C - Munging your own RPMs into the distribution


  Here is Eric's script for munging updated RPMs into the RedHat
  distribution area:



  #!/usr/bin/perl
  #
  $redhatdir="/cdrom/i386";
  $rpmdir="/cdrom/i386/RedHat/RPMS/";
  $updatedir="/cdrom/updates/";
  @OTHERDIR=($updatedir);
  foreach $dir (@OTHERDIR)
          {
          print "update for $dir\n";
          system(" find $dir -name \"*.rpm\" -exec cp {} $rpmdir \\; ");
          }
  chdir($contribdir) || die "peux pas aller dans $contribdir $!\n";
  system("chmod -R 755 $redhatdir");
  chdir($rpmdir) || die "problem to go in $rpmdir $!\n";
  #
  # remove the old file
  #
  opendir(DIR,'.');
  @package=grep(/\.rpm$/,readdir(DIR));
  foreach $file (@package)
          {
          $file =~ /(.*)\-([\d+|\.]+\w*)\-(\d+)\.[i386|noarch].*/;
          $nom=$1;
          $version=$2;
          $buildvers=$3;
          if ($NOM{$nom})
                  {
                  $version2=$VERSION{$nom};
                  $buildver2=$BUILDVERS{$nom};
                  $file2=$FILE{$nom};
                  $nom2=$NOM{$nom};
                  if ( $version2 gt $version )
                          {
                          print "$file2 is newer than $file\n";
                          unlink($file);
                          }
                  else
                          {
                          if ( $version2 lt $version )
                                  {
                                  print "$file is newer than $file2\n";
                                  unlink($file2);
                                  $VERSION{$nom}=$version;
                                  $BUILDVERS{$nom}=$buildvers;
                                  $FILE{$nom}=$file;
                                  $NOM{$nom}=$nom;
                                  }
                          else
                                  {
                                  if ( $buildver2 > $buildvers )
                                                  {
                                             print "$file2 : $buildver2 est mieux que $file : $buildvers\n";
                                             unlink($file);
                                                  }
                                  else
                                                  {
                                          print "$file2 : $buildver2 is older than $file : $buildvers\n";
                                              unlink($file2);
                                              $VERSION{$nom}=$version;
                                              $BUILDVERS{$nom}=$buildvers;
                                              $FILE{$nom}=$file;
                                              $NOM{$nom}=$nom;
                                                  }
                                  }
                          }
                  }
          else
                  {
                  $VERSION{$nom}=$version;
                  $BUILDVERS{$nom}=$buildvers;
                  $FILE{$nom}=$file;
                  $NOM{$nom}=$nom;
                  }
          }

  # we do the hard thing here
  #
  system("$redhatdir/misc/src/install/genhdlist $redhatdir");



