Re: Kickstart installation via network -- not able to override network settings?

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Ray Van Dolson wrote:
On Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 12:46:00PM -0500, James Laska wrote:
Greetings Ray,

I believe the scenario you describe matches:

Bug 401531: [RHEL 5] RHEL5.1 kickstart CD doesn't ask for static ip information

Thanks,
James

Ray Van Dolson wrote:
This is re-post from the kickstart list -- wasn't sure which one was more
appropriate.

In any case, I am doing network-based kickstart installs with RHEL 5.1
and running into an issue where anaconda is not prompting me for
network card information.

We specify the location of the kickstart file as located on an NFS
share on bootup.  The installation URL is via HTTP.

Back in the RHEL4 days we used this same method -- we essentially use
the kickstart file as "defalts" and do an interactive install so the
installer may override things on an as-needed basis.  Often times I
machine requires a static IP address so the installer would simply
provide this information when prompted to by anaconda.

However, in RHEL5 we are _never_ prompted for network information at
all.  From reading the kickstart documentation it seems that if you are
doing a network installation and do not provide any network
configuration information in the kickstart file then it is assumed that
you will be acquring your IP address via DHCP and the installed system
is also configured in this same way.

It would seem that my alternatives would be to either specify the full
static IP information via the network keyword in the kickstart file or
rely on a CD-based installation so that I am presented with the network
settings dialog during installation.

Neither is a great option as this means I will have to maintain special
copies of the kickstart file for machines requiring static IP's or
require the user to configure networking post installation to override
the default DHCP setup.

I realize I could also pass IP information via the bootup options, but
I am trying to make this as trivial as possible for installers, and all
that extra typing is prone to typo's.

I have tried modifying my kickstart file to include only "network
--bootproto=static" to no avail.  Apparently it needs all of the
options for this to work.  And I still don't get a screen in the
installer to manually configure networking.

I've enabled debugging during the installation and don't see anything
pointing to why the networking screen isn't brought up.

Am I doing something wrong?  Is this just "how it works" now with
kickstart / anaconda?

Thanks in advance.
Ray

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but wanted to give an update on this.
I'd opened an SR with RH for this issue.  It took a while to convey the
issue I was having.

To clarify, the issue is that when doing a network-based kickstart
(kickstart file with install target as a url and network parameters set
up in the kickstart config), the "network" screen in the anaconda GUI
installer is not presented to us (stage2 installer).

This is a show-stopper because often times we need our installers to be
able to override the defaults in the kickstart file, specifically for
network information (pick a different hostname, enter a static IP,
etc).

I also have opened this bug:

  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=428445

In the end, thought I'd dig into the anaconda code myself and the fix
was incredibly simple.

I commented out line 879 in kickstart.py:

diff -uNr anaconda-11.1.2.87.orig/kickstart.py anaconda-11.1.2.87/kickstart.py
--- anaconda-11.1.2.87.orig/kickstart.py        2007-06-18 07:30:03.000000000 -0700
+++ anaconda-11.1.2.87/kickstart.py     2008-01-11 11:19:25.000000000 -0800
@@ -876,7 +876,7 @@
         dispatch.skipStep("betanag")
         dispatch.skipStep("installtype")
dispatch.skipStep("tasksel") - dispatch.skipStep("network")
+        # dispatch.skipStep("network")
# Don't show confirmation screens on non-interactive installs.
         if not self.ksdata.interactive:

I packaged this up as an updates.img and now anaconda gives me the
network settings dialog even when I'm doing a network-based kickstart
install.

IMO, this behavior should be the default...

It seems that as long as you specify "interactive" in the ks config
file, screens such as network settings should not be skipped.  Am I
missing some reasoning there?


Maybe.
Should you be testing self.ksdata.interactive: as above?
Is skipping/not skipping those other bits working? If so, how are they different.


I don't know the code, I'm just asking questions that arise in my mind on seeing your patch.





--

Cheers
John

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