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Templates, snippets and infos for the Red Hat Kickstart installation method is used by Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and related distributions. Automatically perform unattended OS Installation.

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Kickstart templates

This repository is used to provide resources for the Red Hat Kickstart installation method is used by Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and related distributions like CentOS. Kickstart is used to automatically perform unattended OS Installation (e.g. by PXE):

  • Template files (mostly used to assist the secure setup of bare metal VM host machines for foundata)
  • Snippets
  • Notes about bugs, compatibility issues and so on.

Some of these ideas and snippets might be useful for third parties. We therefore open sourced this repo.

Table of Contents

HowTo, Tips and Tricks

Validate Kickstart file, show differences between versions

pykickstart provides tools like ksvalidator and ksdiff. It makes sense to simply run them on the latest Fedora release by installing the pykickstart package.

# install needed package
sudo dnf install pykickstart

# list available kickstart syntax versions
ksverdiff --list

# show differences
ksverdiff --from RHEL7 --to RHEL8

# validate a file
ksvalidator ./foo.ks

Debugging Hints

After Anaconda (the graphical installer) started, there are different TTYs / terminals you can switch to (via Ctrl+Alt+F<Number> or Alt+F<Number>):

  • TTY1: Main information screen before starting the graphical installer (Anaconda). As well as the installation dialog when using text or cmdline.
  • TTY2: A root shell. Useful commands and hints:
    • /tmp/ks-script-XXX: A script defined in %pre. So you can inspect or (re-)run.
    • A Kickstartfile from a OEMDRV gets copied to /run/install/ks.cfg. If nothing exists, check if mkdir /run/foo && mount /dev/sdX1 /run/foo works.
    • lsblk -l -p
  • TTY3
    • Install log: The install log displaying messages from install program (if any)
  • TTY4
    • Strorage log: The system log displaying messages from kernel, etc.
  • TTY5
    • Program log: All other messages.
  • TTY7
    • The installation dialog when using the graphical installer.

Automatically load Kickstart file from OEMDRV storage device

Attention / FIXME: There seems to be a bug in CentOS 8 (including 8.1.1911) preventing this automatism to work (at least it did not in our tests). You can add inst.ks=hd:sdX1:/ks.cfg to he setup command line as workaround.

The CentOS setup can load your Kickstart file automatically without having to specify the inst.ks= boot option. To do so, one name the file ks.cfg and place it on an additional storage volume labeled OEMDRV (cf. RHEL 7 installation guide: 26.2.5. Starting the Kickstart Installation). One You can use ext2/3/4 or XFS as filesystem.

The following explains how to prepare prepare a USB key with label OEMDRV on the terminal (gparted as UI would also be sufficient):

## define path of USB flash drive
lsblk -l -p
TARGETDEVICE='/dev/sdX'
KICKSTARTFILE='/path/to/your/kickstart.file.ks'

## partitioning
sudo parted "${TARGETDEVICE}" mktable msdos
sudo parted "${TARGETDEVICE}" mkpart primary 0% 100%

## create filesystem and label it
# Hint if you need to manually adjust the label of an existing filesystem:
# ext2/3/4:   e2label "${TARGETDEVICE}1" 'OEMDRV'
# xfs:        xfs_admin -L 'OEMDRV' "${TARGETDEVICE}1"
sudo mkfs.xfs -f -L 'OEMDRV' "${TARGETDEVICE}1"
lsblk -l -p

## copy your kickstart file on the USB flash drive
sudo mkdir -p '/mnt/tmpkickstart/'
sudo mount "${TARGETDEVICE}1" '/mnt/tmpkickstart/'
sudo cp "${KICKSTARTFILE}" '/mnt/tmpkickstart/ks.cfg'
sudo chmod 0664 '/mnt/tmpkickstart/ks.cfg'

## clean up
sync
sudo umount /mnt/tmpkickstart/
sudo rm -rf "/mnt/tmpkickstart/"

Now just boot and make sure the additional USB key is present when the installation media starts.

Create USB flash drive CentOS installation media

Just validate your ISO and write it with dd to the target device /dev/sdX (adapt as needed). For sure, all data (if any) on the target will get detroyed.

Example:

$ sha256sum ./CentOS-8.1.1911-x86_64-dvd1.iso
3ee3f4ea1538e026fff763e2b284a6f20b259d91d1ad5688f5783a67d279423b  ./CentOS-8.1.1911-x86_64-dvd1.iso

$ sudo dd if=./CentOS-8.1.1911-x86_64-dvd1.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=8M status=progress oflag=direct && sync

Custom USB flash drive including a Kickstart file for installation

Attention: the following method will only work with Legacy BIOS boot. The USB Flash drive will not boot with UEFI. This method propaply does not work with CentOS 8 (or at least needs adaption).

Preparations

Download the DVD ISO from https://www.centos.org/download/. Do not forget to verify the checksums! Example:

sha256sum ./CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1611.iso
c455ee948e872ad2194bdddd39045b83634e8613249182b88f549bb2319d97eb  ./CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1611.iso

In principle you can use any distribution you like. But using the same OS for media creation and target installation might save you from a lot trouble (e.g. incompatible syslinux versions and resulting c32 errors).

So get a running box with the same OS version for USB installation media creation (It might be clever to just use the downloaded ISO to quickly setup a VM including GUI for this task. Use USB passthrough then to access the USB flash drive).

Hints for Virtual Box and CentOS:

  • You might want to enable USB 3 for faster copy operations afterwards.
  • USB 3 devices do not work on virtual USB 2 controllers (so the VirtualBox extension pack is needed then).
  • Install guest additions: 
    # Preparation
sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install gcc kernel-devel kernel-headers dkms make bzip2 perl
sudo yum update
sudo systemctl reboot

# Install
export KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/`uname -r`
# [... insert Guest addition media now and follow the instructions of
#     ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run ... ]

Media creation

Tasks:

  • Partitioning on the USB flash drive:
    1. msdos partition table
    2. sdX1: FAT32, label KSBOOT, no description, bootable, 350 MiB.
    3. sdX2: ext3, label KSDATA, no description, Rest of the storage (at least as large as the ISO).
  • Install SYSLINUX on /dev/sdX1 and copy mbr.bin
  • Copy the SYSLINUX bootmenu files from the ISO to /dev/sdX1 (KSBOOT)
  • Copy ISO to /dev/sdX2 (KSDATA)
  • Adapt syslinux.cfg on KSBOOT and place the ks.cfg beside

Full working example to execute under CentOS (all data on sdX will be lost!)

## define path of USB flash drive and ISO
TARGETDEVICE='/dev/sdX'
ISOFILE='/path/to/centos/dvd.iso'
KICKSTARTFILE='/path/to/your/kickstart.file.ks'

## verify
sha256sum "${ISOFILE}"

## partitioning
sudo fdisk "${TARGETDEVICE}"
o
    Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x94a6972d.
n
    Partition type:
       p   primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
       e   extended
    Select (default p):
    Using default response p
    Partition number (1-4, default 1):
    First sector (2048-30869503, default 2048):
    Using default value 2048
    Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-30869503, default 30869503): +350M
    Partition 1 of type Linux and of size 350 MiB is set
t
    Selected partition 1
    Hex code (type L to list all codes): c
    Changed type of partition 'Linux' to 'W95 FAT32 (LBA)'
a
    Selected partition 1
n
    Partition type:
       p   primary (1 primary, 0 extended, 3 free)
       e   extended
    Select (default p):
    Using default response p
    Partition number (2-4, default 2):
    First sector (718848-30869503, default 718848):
    Using default value 718848
    Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (718848-30869503, default 30869503): +5000M
    Partition 2 of type Linux and of size 4.9 GiB is set
w
    The partition table has been altered!

## create file systems
sudo mkfs.vfat -n 'KSBOOT' "${TARGETDEVICE}1"
sudo mkfs.ext3 -L "KSDATA" "${TARGETDEVICE}2"


## write MBR, install syslinux on boot partition
sudo yum install syslinux
sudo dd conv=notrunc bs=440 count=1 if='/usr/share/syslinux/mbr.bin' of="${TARGETDEVICE}"
syslinux "${TARGETDEVICE}1"


## copy data from ISO to USB flash drive
mkdir -p '/mnt/tmpkickstart/boot'
mkdir -p '/mnt/tmpkickstart/data'
mkdir -p '/mnt/tmpkickstart/iso'

sudo mount "${TARGETDEVICE}1" '/mnt/tmpkickstart/boot'
sudo mount "${TARGETDEVICE}2" '/mnt/tmpkickstart/data'
sudp mount "${ISOFILE}" '/mnt/tmpkickstart/iso'

cp /mnt/tmpkickstart/iso/isolinux/* '/mnt/tmpkickstart/boot'
mv '/mnt/tmpkickstart/boot/isolinux.cfg' '/mnt/tmpkickstart/boot/syslinux.cfg'
cp "${ISOFILE}" '/mnt/tmpkickstart/data'
sync


## adapt labels for a fitting boot menu / to use kickstart file
vi /mnt/tmpkickstart/boot/syslinux.cfg
# [...]
# See below for example


## copy your kickstart file on the USB flash drive
cp "${KICKSTARTFILE}" '/mnt/tmpkickstart/boot/ks.cfg'


## clean up
sudo umount /mnt/tmpkickstart/*
rm -rf "/mnt/tmpkickstart/"

Example syslinux labels:

# The inst.gpt boot parameter forces a GPT partition table even when the disk
# size is less than 2^32 sectors, cf. red.ht/2psiz5w.

label kickstart
  menu label ^Install CentOS (Kickstart)
  kernel vmlinuz
  append initrd=initrd.img inst.stage2=hd:LABEL=KSDATA:/ ks=hd:LABEL=KSBOOT:/ks.cfg inst.gpt quiet

label kickstartcheck
  menu label Test this ^media & install CentOS (Kickstart)
  menu default
  kernel vmlinuz
  append initrd=initrd.img inst.stage2=hd:LABEL=KSDATA:/ ks=hd:LABEL=KSBOOT:/ks.cfg inst.gpt rd.live.check quiet

See RHEL 7 Anaconda Customization Guide, "3. Customizing the Boot Menu" and man dracut.cmdline for more details and documentation.

The inst.gpt boot parameter forces a GPT partition table even when the disk size is less than 2^32 sectors, cf. https://access.redhat.com/solutions/2210981.

Further reading, useful links and notes

Documentation:

Tools:

Examples, inspiration:

On %pre, %post, variables:

Ideas / To be done / ToDo

Split everything

Organize snippets by category and create snippets for each technical usecase. Use %include to put them together instead of repeating yourself

.
├── keyboard
│   ├── de-de.ks
│   └── de-us.ks
├── lang
├── network
├── notes-and-ideas
├── partitioning
│   ├── auto-gpt-crypt.ks
│   ├── auto-gpt.ks
│   ├── auto-mbr-crypt.ks
│   └── auto-mbr.ks
├── services
├── timezone
├── user
...

http://www2.math.uu.se/~chris/kickstart/ (Mirror: http://archive.is/Nq0nM) provides interesting thoughts on this.

Write a generator based on templates?

Maybe it makes sense to create an intelligent wizard to generate the Kickstart file bases on questions. This propably makes most sense when snippets where split up.

Idea in shell:

# init misc vars
data_hostname=''
data_domainname=''
data_drive=''
data_dmcrypt_pwdplain=''
data_hostwithgui=''

# [Wizard with questions here to fill the data_* vars ]

# Write out KS commands into variables. Have a look above the corresponding
# init
KS_SNIPPET_NETWORK=''
KS_SNIPPET_IGNOREDISK=''
KS_SNIPPET_BOOTLOADER=''
KS_SNIPPET_CLEARPART=''
KS_SNIPPET_PART_BOOT=''
KS_SNIPPET_PART_PV=''
KS_SNIPPET_LOGVOL=''
KS_SNIPPET_GUI=''
KS_SNIPPET_PACKAGES=''

# network.ks
KS_SNIPPET_NETWORK="$(printf '%s\n' "network --bootproto=dhcp --activate --hostname=${data_hostname}.${data_domainname}")"
# ignoredisk.ks
KS_SNIPPET_IGNOREDISK="$(printf '%s\n' "ignoredisk --only-use=${data_drive}")"
# bootloader.ks
KS_SNIPPET_BOOTLOADER="$(printf '%s\n' "bootloader --append=\" crashkernel=auto \" --location=\"mbr\" --boot-drive=\"${data_drive}\"")"
# clearpart.ks
KS_SNIPPET_CLEARPART="$(printf '%s\n' "clearpart --all --drives=${data_drive}")"
# part-boot.ks
KS_SNIPPET_PART_BOOT="$(printf '%s\n' "part /boot --fstype=\"xfs\" --ondisk=${data_drive} --size=768")"
# part-pv.ks
if [ -z "${data_dmcrypt_pwdplain}" ]
then
    KS_SNIPPET_PART_PV="$(printf '%s\n' "part pv.01 --fstype=\"lvmpv\" --ondisk=${data_drive} --grow")"
else
     #FIXME: writing the password into a file is might be dangerous here. Leaving it out -> let anaconda ask?
    KS_SNIPPET_PART_PV="$(printf '%s\n' "part pv.01 --fstype=\"lvmpv\" --ondisk=${data_drive} --grow --encrypted --passphrase=${data_dmcrypt_pwdplain}")"
fi
# logvol.ks
if [ "$(printf '%d' $(cat '/proc/partitions' | sed -e 's/^[[:space:]]*//' -e 's/[[:space:]]*$//' | grep -E -e "${data_drive}\$" | tr -s '[:space:]' ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 3))" -gt 86769664 ] # all linux blocks are currently 1024 bytes (cf. manpage vmstat(8))
then
    # OS on different filesystem, more flexible, reduced risk of filled up root FS
    # 35840 + (5 x 10240) + 5120 + 2048 + 768 (boot) = 84736 MiB * 1024 = 86769664 bytes
    KS_SNIPPET_LOGVOL="$(printf '%s\n' "$(cat <<-'DELIM'
	logvol /         --vgname=vg01 --name=os_root     --fstype="xfs"  --size=10240
	logvol /home     --vgname=vg01 --name=os_home     --fstype="xfs"  --size=2048
	logvol /var      --vgname=vg01 --name=os_var      --fstype="xfs"  --size=35840
	logvol /var/tmp  --vgname=vg01 --name=os_var_tmp  --fstype="xfs"  --size=10240
	logvol /var/log  --vgname=vg01 --name=os_var_log  --fstype="xfs"  --size=10240
	logvol /tmp      --vgname=vg01 --name=os_tmp      --fstype="xfs"  --size=10240
	logvol swap      --vgname=vg01 --name=os_swap     --fstype="swap" --size=5120
	DELIM
    )")"
else
    # OS on single filesystem with at least 5 GiB, --grow as large as possible
    KS_SNIPPET_LOGVOL="$(printf '%s\n' "$(cat <<-'DELIM'
	logvol /         --vgname=vg01 --name=os_root     --fstype="xfs"  --size=5120 --grow
	logvol swap      --vgname=vg01 --name=os_swap     --fstype="swap" --size=1024
	DELIM
    )")"
fi
# gui.kss
if [ -n "${data_hostwithgui}" ] &&
   [ "${data_hostwithgui}" = "true" ]
then
    KS_SNIPPET_GUI="$(printf '%s\n' "$(cat <<-'DELIM'
	# X Window System configuration information
	xconfig --startxonboot
	DELIM
    )")"
else
    KS_SNIPPET_GUI="$(printf '%s\n' "$(cat <<-'DELIM'
	# Do not configure the X Window System
	skipx
	DELIM
    )")"
fi
# packages.ks
KS_SNIPPET_PACKAGES="$(printf '%s\n\n' '%packages')" # line not included in HEREDOC, otherwise %package makes Anaconda believe that the %pre section is not closed correctly
if [ -n "${data_hostwithgui}" ] &&
   [ "${data_hostwithgui}" = "true" ]
then
    KS_SNIPPET_PACKAGES="$(printf '%s\n' "$(cat <<-'DELIM'
	### Environment
	@^graphical-server-environment

	### Remove packages
	-cheese
	-totem
	-@office-suite
	DELIM
    )")"
else
    KS_SNIPPET_PACKAGES="$(printf '%s\n' "$(cat <<-'DELIM'
	### Environment
	@^virtualization-host-environment

	### Remove packages
	# none right now

	DELIM
	)")"
fi
KS_SNIPPET_PACKAGES="
%packages

${KS_SNIPPET_PACKAGES}

### Additional packages or package groups (not depended on the environment)
@virtualization-hypervisor
@virtualization-tools
chrony
kexec-tools
virt-install
virt-top


%end
"

export KS_SNIPPET_NETWORK
export KS_SNIPPET_IGNOREDISK
export KS_SNIPPET_BOOTLOADER
export KS_SNIPPET_CLEARPART
export KS_SNIPPET_PART_BOOT
export KS_SNIPPET_PART_PV
export KS_SNIPPET_LOGVOL
export KS_SNIPPET_GUI
export KS_SNIPPET_PACKAGES

MYVARS='$KS_SNIPPET_NETWORK:$KS_SNIPPET_IGNOREDISK:$KS_SNIPPET_BOOTLOADER:$KS_SNIPPET_CLEARPART:$KS_SNIPPET_PART_BOOT:$KS_SNIPPET_PART_PV:$KS_SNIPPET_LOGVOL:$KS_SNIPPET_GUI:$KS_SNIPPET_PACKAGES'
envsubst "$MYVARS" <./template.ks >/tmp/result.ks

Research

Kickstart via webserver or DHCP

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Templates, snippets and infos for the Red Hat Kickstart installation method is used by Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and related distributions. Automatically perform unattended OS Installation.

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