RE: SCSI / IDE detection using kickstart and loadlin

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Are utilities such as list-harddrives documented somewhere, or is it more of
a search-the-source kind of thing?

Donald E. Bodle, Jr.
Sr. Systems Integration Engineer
Platform Development
The Reynolds and Reynolds Co.
(937) 485-1954
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron M. Morrison [mailto:amm@xxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 12:58 PM
To: kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: SCSI / IDE detection using kickstart and loadlin

I use the list-harddrives utility in 
the %pre section, to make some assumptions about drives, 
ie if scsi, install scsi, if ide and scsi, install scsi, etc....
then I dynamically write a partition table, that get's used as an 
include. I've seen similar things done in python, but I just use
what utilities are available during the install. You could also
probably look into what /proc has about ide/scsi/md. 
You have to decide about what devices you are going to support
though, I decided that any special devices, would be custom
and hence, warranted their own ks file. So I only support
ide/scsi, and memory size detection for swap.
amm 

On Wed, 19 Feb 2003, dfloyd1 wrote:

> Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 08:28:03 -0800 (PST)
> From: dfloyd1 <dfloyd1@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx
> To: kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: SCSI / IDE detection using kickstart and loadlin
> 
> Thanks again for the attention,
> 
> 
> 
> ***Is there any reason it can't install a Linux filesytem containing
Linux?
> ***I don't care whether it's in addition to, or instead of the Windows.
> I am installing Linux file systems...for clarification I will include my
> ks.cfg below. Please note that the 'part' section is just an example until
I
> finialize partition size requirements... (Clearpart will keep the existing
> Fat32 partition and 
> add 2 Linux partitions.)
> 
> My ks.cfg configuration:
> #######################
> lang en_US
> langsupport en_US
> keyboard us
> mouse --emulthree generic3ps/2
> timezone --utc America/New_York
> rootpw --iscrypted $1$ra7.bZÝM$k8tTmuc1dG6clRGie0NFM0
> reboot
> text
> bootloader --location=mbr 
> install
> 
> #The following line is the line in question...
> harddrive --dir syswork/rhew21 --partition /dev/hda1
> 
> clearpart --linux 
> #Below partitioning is an example
> part / --fstype ext3 --size 8000 
> part  swap --size 512 
> network --bootproto dhcp
> auth  --useshadow  --enablemd5 
> firewall --medium 
> skipx
> %packages
> @Everything
> 
> #######################
> 
> ***Actually, you haven't said what's in the FAT32 partition.
> I did..let me clarify. The Fat32 partition contains the loadlin Linux
> loader, and initrd and kernel from RedHat CD and a copy of the RedHat
> directory off the CD's + RPMS to allow the machines to boot from CD. This
> will always be the first partition of a Scsi or IDE drive. (sda1 or hda1)
> 
> 
> ***You can partition in the %pre section instead of using Anaconda's
> ***partitioning. I'm not sure how to detect whether you're using SCSI or
> ***ATA. If you never have both installed, then it's fairly easy. One way
is
> ***to grep the kernel messages.
> 
> ***However, if possible, I want something better than the basic toolset in
> ***the installer.
> 
> 
> The line in question is:
> harddrive --dir syswork/rhew21 --partition /dev/hda1
> 
> Does the installer go through the above line (which tells where the
> installation files are to be located) AFTER going through the %pre
section?
> If so, I'm wondering if it would be possible to modify if the machine has
a
> scsi drive instead of a ide
> drive attached. I already have partitioning taken care of..I just need to
> make sure it can find the installation files (sda1 vs. hda1)
> 
> 
> I hope this clarifies, thanks again for the assistance.
> 
> > We are using PowerQuest DriveImage(Imaging software) to load the
software
> > via the network(via non *nix servers) onto the configured machines. The
> > image is simply an active Fat32 partition with an autoexec.bat file to
> kick
> > off loadlin and point to the RedHat directory which is also part of this
> > image. 
> > 
> > After the image is loaded, it reboots and continues to install Linux.
> > 
> > Again we can't modify the servers (ie installing via NFS or http) and
the
> > solution must be able to detect what kind of hard drive is attached to
it.
> > 
> > Thanks again,
> > Dave
> > 
> > 
> > >***How are you getting the Linux images to these machines?
> > 
> > 
> > > Greetings,
> > > 
> > > In my environment, we have been tasked to have kickstart be used to
> > automate
> > > the setup of our Linux boxes. The interesting twist is that nobody
will
> be
> > > at the consoles to insert disk media (cd-roms nor floppy) and the
entire
> > > installation has to kick off from the first partition (Fat32) of the
> hard
> > > drive.
> > 
> > 
> > > 
> > > The hard drives arcitecture varies (Some machines may have 1 IDE, Some
> > have
> > > 1 SCSI) so we need to make sure the process can detect which type of
> hard
> > > drive it is loading from.
> > > 
> > > In addition, the kickstart file needs to be called from the hard drive
> via
> > > loadlin.exe  (Fat32 partition...sda1 or hda1...) and not initially
> > enclosed
> > > in an initrd until loadlin boots the kernel.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > My current batch file runs the following:
> > > loadlin vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=7192 ks=hd:hda1/ks.cfg
> > > 
> > > which, of corse works great on IDE machines since I'm specifying that
> it's
> > > IDE.
> > > 
> > > Is is possible to, say, package a dummy ks.cfg file in the initrd, use
> > > ks=file:ks.cfg as the parameter and before the installer reads the ks
> > file,
> > > get the initrd to detect whither the hd is scsi or ide (maybe by
issuing
> a
> > > mount /dev/hda1 attempting to copy/mnt/hda1/ks.cfg, umount hda1, mount
> > sda1
> > > attempt to copy /mnt/sda1/ks.cfg..  and append it's findings to
ks.cfg?
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Again, we have a Fat32 bootable partition which boots linux via
loadlin
> > and
> > > must detect the hard drive just like it can when linux is installed
via
> > > CD...(If it sees a scsi drive, it defaults to sda...etc).
> > > 
> > > Many thanks for your sugesstions and assistance,
> > > 
> > > Dave
> > > 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> 



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