[syslinux] PXE / Kickstart / nfs ....

Mauricio Villamil mvillamil at aib.ac.uk
Fri Apr 25 07:32:04 PDT 2008


hello there, 

I wonder if you could help me:

 I am trying to install 50 diskless servers using PXE / kickstart, it all starts well, DHCP server issues a dynamic address, tftp issues the kickstart file, the client starts reading the KS file but at some point anaconda brings up an unhandled exception related to Python when reading  Comps.xml??

What is really unsettling is the fact that if I plug a IDE cdrom to the server (it has an IDE port inside) and boot from cd/dvd, then I can issue a: linux ks=nfs:198.162.0.0.:/export/moonshine/ks.rnode.cfg and it will work perfectly, not breaking at all the network installation.

Please note that the clients have two network cards eth0 and eth1

These are samples of the files I am using: 

the default file for PXE booting is:

default linux

label linux
        kernel vmlinuz
        append  initrd=initrd.img load_ramdisk=1 text linux ks=nfs:192.168.0.0:/export/moonshine/ks.rnode.cfg  ksdevice=eth0 ip=dhcp

=================================================================================

the kicstart file is:

# Kickstart file automatically generated by anaconda.

install
#reboot
#cdrom
text
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard uk
#xconfig --driver "vesa" --resolution 800x600 --depth 8 --startxonboot
xconfig --resolution 800x600 --depth 8 --startxonboot
network --device eth1 --bootproto dhcp
nfs --server 192.168.0.0 --dir /export/moonshine/
rootpw --iscrypted $1$71fLV/wH$V4OQNd6WZ32srMY60axN//
firewall --disabled
authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
selinux --disabled
timezone --utc Europe/London
bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=hda --append="rhgb quiet" --md5pass=$1$oPmnmKSW$M2RyKA9xPM33Ml7i7o3EL.
# The following is the partition information you requested
# Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed
# here so unless you clear all partitions first, this is
# not guaranteed to work
clearpart --all --drives=sda
part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100 --ondisk=sda
part pv.8 --size=1 --grow  --ondisk=sda
volgroup RootVolumeGroup pv.8
#volgroup SwapVolumeGroup pv.9
logvol swap --fstype swap --name=SwapVolume --vgname=RootVolumeGroup --size=4064
logvol / --fstype ext3 --name=rootVolume --vgname=RootVolumeGroup --size=1 --grow

%packages
@admin-tools
@base
@core
@development-libs
@development-tools
@editors
@system-tools
kernel-devel

%post --nochroot

cat /mnt/source/rnodestage2 >> /mnt/sysimage/etc/rc.d/rc.local
cp /mnt/source/inittab.3 /mnt/sysimage/etc/inittab

==================================================================================


Well.... can anyone give me an idea about solving this ???

Thank you all very much.

Mauricio Villamil


Mauricio Villamil
Technician Demonstrator -Linux studio-
Arts Institute at Bournemouth

MA Digital Effects
BA(Hons)Computer Visualization & Animation
BA(Hons)Fine Art -Painting-

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