On Mon, 29 Mar 2004, Fred Leeflang wrote: >I thought about using PXELINUX or something like that. Most of our >more modern servers support that in BIOS and it seems like an elegant >solution. I see one drawback though: > >- The pxelinux image MUST sit on the DHCP server so it can be tftp'ed. Nonsense; where's that written? The pxelinux image must live on the "next-server" at "filename", but there's no requirement that next-server == DHCP server. >Not a big issue I guess. How would you go about passing the >location of the PXELINUX image? Is it possible to set those >arguments in the filename "" setting in DHCP? An example might make this clearer: shared-network EXAMPLE-DHCP { use-host-decl-names on; option domain-name "example.com"; subnet 10.1.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { option routers 10.1.1.1; option domain-name-servers 10.1.3.2; next-server 10.1.3.2; filename "/tftpboot/pxelinux.0"; host nosuchmac { hardware ethernet 00:11:00:33:22:11; fixed-address 10.1.1.222; } } } >Lots of questions still... I read somewhere that it's not >just possible to copy updated RPMS in the Redhat/ dir and >expect them to be installed with the next kickstart. You'd need to run genhdlist. >There's also no way I guess to specify the versions of RPMS to be >installed so we could make a repository of some sort which keeps track >of which RPMS/versions are installed on a server at any time. I read >some about kickstart-utils which seems worth investigating, but are >there any of you out there who use any such tools that, for example, >scan a system and automatically maintain a ks.cfg? There are many ways of managing your package lists. The best solution will depend on your software requirements, diversity of systems, approach to change-management, whether you want to pay Redhat for RHN subscriptions etc. "/root/anaconda-ks.cfg" comes close to what you're asking for. Cheers, Phil