What are Kickstart Installations? Kickstart installations offer a means to automate the installation process, either partially or fully.
Kickstart files contain answers to all questions normally asked by the installation program, such as what time zone you want the system to use, how the drives should be partitioned, or which packages should be installed. Linux installation can be performed totally unattended using Kickstart file, which contains configuration, required setup and post installation tasks to fully automate installation process without being prompted for any input details.
Kickstart file can be placed in the remote repository or can be included in ISO image in order to be read by Anaconda installer during system installation. If you want to avoid accidental reinstallation of already installed operating system, you can check whether there is any existing partition table on the disk using kpartx or partx :.
The below example shows, how to detect hardware type, verify hard disk capacity and apply different partitioning scheme based on detected hardware type. For hardware detection we are using here virt-what command, which checks the type of detected hardware bare metal , Virtualbox , VMware.
For virtual hardware detected VirtualBox , VMware , auto partitioning is applied. Next the physical volumes pv. For more information about this tool, see the ksvalidator 1 man page. Keep in mind that the validation tool has its limitations. The Kickstart file can be very complicated; ksvalidator can make sure the syntax is correct and that the file does not include deprecated options, but it cannot guarantee the installation will be successful. Changes in Kickstart Syntax. While the general principles of Kickstart installations tend to stay the same, the commands and options can change between major releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
You can use the ksverdiff command to display the differences between two versions of the Kickstart syntax. This is useful when updating an existing Kickstart file to be used with a new release. To display a list of changes in syntax between Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7, use the following command:. The -f option specifies the release to start the comparison with, and the -t option to specify the release to end with. For additional information, see the ksverdiff 1 man page.
Making the Kickstart File Available. On a hard drive connected to the installation system. On a network share reachable from the installation system. Normally, a Kickstart file is copied to removable media or a hard drive, or made available on the network. Placing the file in a network location complements the usual approach to Kickstart installations, which is also network-based: the system is booted using a PXE server, the Kickstart file is downloaded from a network share, and software packages specified in the file are downloaded from remote repositories.
Making the Kickstart file available and reachable from the installation system is exactly the same as making the installation source available, only with the Kickstart file instead of the installation ISO image or tree. For full procedures, see Section 3. Making the Installation Source Available. The Kickstart installation must access an installation source in order to install the packages needed by your system.
See Section 3. Starting the Kickstart Installation. To load your Kickstart file automatically without having to specify the inst. To start a Kickstart installation, use the boot option inst. The exact way to specify the boot option depends on your system's architecture - see Chapter 23, Boot Options for details. When you configure the PXE server, you can add the boot option into the boot loader configuration file, which in turn allows you to start the installation automatically.
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