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
_______________________________________________
Kickstart-list mailing list
Kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
_______________________________________________
Kickstart-list mailing list
Kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
_______________________________________________
Kickstart-list mailing list
Kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
