Kickstart file configuration questions

[phil.e]

Hello,

I'm building a kickstart server, using CentOS 7, to image machines to a CentOS 6.9 image, and having issues getting the booting client to read the ks.cfg file and continue with the automated install.

The system seems to work fine as far as dhcp goes - the client gets an IP address, it boots the vmlinuz and initrd.ram images.

The installation sources are available via http from the following URL http://10.0.0.1/CentOS6.

I have the /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux/pxelinux.cfg/default configured with this line:

append initrd=initrd.img inst.ks=http://10.0.0.1/CentOS6/ks.cfg

I did a manual install of the system first, to generate what should have been a relevant kickstart file. I copied the kickstart file to the following locations on the kickstart server:

/var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux/ks.cfg
/var/www/html/CentOS6/ks.cfg

I noticed the initial permission on the ks.cfg file was 600, owner root:root, and changed them first to 644 root:root, then changed them to 777 root:root to rule out if there was a permissions thing going on or not.

The install always stops on the first screen (which language do you want to use), so I'm not sure if's not reading and/or finding the ks.cfg file at all or if it's stopping on that point because it's not specified correctly in the kickstart file. (one of the first lines in the kickstart file is "lang en_UTF-8", so that is what it's supposed to be)

I'm not getting any error messages to go on, so I'm trying to take educated guesses as to what the problem is, but not succeeding so far.

Any suggestions?

[TrevorH]

If you see the language selection screen then it's either not found your kickstart or there's a problem with it. If you go on from that screen and get to the main installer screen then the bits it understood should be reflected in the choices that are set in the different sections and the bit that went wrong is likely to be highlighted as in error. There should also be logs on the other VTs about what went wrong.

[phil.e]

I went in to check the default file again, and the initrd= option and the inst.ks= option were on separate lines, so I put them back on the same line again, and then it finally recognized the ks.cfg. I must have separated the lines at one point while testing different options.