The purpose of this release was to address recently-requested
improvements. The main features you will want to be aware of are:
(A) the PXE files are now completely templated by various templates
stored in /var/www/cobbler. This should allow for user modification of
timeouts and other variables (if desirable) as well as adding on
additional parameters like the previously requested support for
"ipappend 2".
(B) much improved import features, which a focus being on the DVD
import use case. DVD imports (either mounted regularly or by
loopback) are now first class citzens to "cobbler import". Version
detection and kickstart assignment is done by looking
at versions of the "-release" RPMs. With this modification, starting
with a DVD or ISO is now the fastest way to bring up provisioning
infrastructure from scratch. Those importing DVD's by using the "ssh
hack" don't need to do that anymore, as all imports now mirror
automagically. (This may later result in a feature request to do an
import without mirroring content, though in most use cases, mirroring is
important for accessibility of the files). Also note that "tree" is
now a metadata parameter attached to the distro, not the profile (yay!).
Also, in bugfix land, this addresses the much reported problem of "my
kernel options are way too long". DVD import now names imported
distros very cleanly, so the names are a lot shorter. In addition,
cobbler makes use of a "links"
directory of path symlinks on import, to further shorten the paths.
Also note that cobbler has new values for /var/lib/cobbler/settings,
removing a few kernel parameters that really don't need to be in the
default list. If you have
an existing cobbler install, these won't be updated, so you may want to
manually remove "ramdisk_size" and "append" from
/var/lib/cobbler/settings and re run "cobbler sync". Those parameters
don't need to be there. Basically all you
really want are "ksdevice" (maybe), "lang", and "text". And maybe not
even those depending on what you want to put in your kickstarts.
From the CHANGELOG:
- Generate PXE configuration files from templates in /etc/cobbler to be
more customizable
- Fix bug with wrong kickstart metadata being used for import
- Fix bug with argument parsing for --repos
- Much cleaner distro/profile names with --import
- For import, the "tree" parameter is now attached to the distro, not
the profile
- Add "links" directory in webdir for symlinking to full kickstart tree
paths.
- Misc tweaks to shorten kernel parameter length
- Giving invalid arguments to "report" will show an error message
- Distros, Profiles, and System names are now case insensitive.
RPMs and code out now, pushing to Fedora's yum shortly...
--Michael
