I'm new to this list and hopeful that someone can help figure a way out of our problem.
We're in the process of morphing our 7.1 kickstart configuration to into something
useful for 7.2 and ran into a something which we didn't expect.
Before I ask for help, just a bit on how we use kickstart. We're a graduate research
lab in computer graphics. Given the vagaries of research it's not possible to impose
a "one shoe fits all" system on everyone and it's also true that machines get reinstalled
frequently. Therefore we use kickstart to get a machine back online quickly with
enough configured to be responsible vis a vis hackers, but people then immediately
do things like install the latest Nvidia driver RPMS. Furthermore quite a few
systems need to dual-boot with Windows (VMware for all its virtues isn't the
right vehicle when you need to use the latest video drivers). We have many kinds
of PCs with either SCSI or IDE disks, sometimes both.
The kickstart process we've been using happily since about 6.0 involved a pretty
straightforward file which specified, but didn't clear, default Linux partitions.
The anaconda installer has had the property that if partioning was specified but
couldn't be honored, it would just dump you into Disk Druid and let you straighten
it out however you wanted. Then the kickstart could be resumed and would run
on to a finish. This was great if someone had a non-standard partition set up
or if they wanted to reinstall but just blow away root and leave others alone.
In 7.2, however, if the partioning can't be honored, the kickstart just throws
up a non-negotiable error box whose only way out is a reboot, i.e. no recovery
is possible.
So I've been trying to see if there's a way to restore the old behavior but
I can't find anything. For a while I had hopes that an "interactive" install
would do the job but it doesn't seem to help in "text" mode and in "graphics"
mode, the interactive install seems to ignore some directives (like a
crypted "rootpw").
If I can't get the old behavior back, I don't see any very nice alternatives
given the wide variability of our machines. I suppose we could use the
features which let you have separate kickstart file for each machine based
on IP address, but this is a maintenance headache all by itself.
Anyone had this kind of issue and managed to resolve it or have a suggestion?
--
John Gerth gerth@xxxxxxxxxxxx (650) 725-3273 fax 723-0033
PS - BTW the new "autostep" option for debugging appears to not work
in "text" installs. It does work in "graphics" but we use "text"
because of our often flaky video card situations.
