Red Hat kickstart

From Leo's Notes
Last edited on 4 February 2022, at 21:49.

Tasks

Anaconda boot options

It might be necessary to pass in specific system configuration such as network configs (bonded connection, VLANs, static IP) or boot methods to the Linux installer image. Below are some cases I've encountered where I had to use some less well-known options outlined from Red Hat's documentation.

Booting Anaconda with a bonded connection

If your install requires pulling data from the network (such as a driver disk or kickstart file), but your interfaces are bonded over two or more interfaces, use the bond=bond_name:interfaces:bond_options option.

For example, I bonded two interfaces eno1 and eno2 as bond0: bond=bond0:eno1,eno2:mode=802.3ad,miimon=100.

You must also specify how the IP is obtained using the ip=interface:method or ip=ip::gateway:netmask:hostname:interface:none options.

Booting Anaconda with a tagged VLAN connection

If your network connection involves tagged traffic, you can tell Anaconda to create a VLAN device to access your network using the vlan=name:interface option.

For example, to access VLAN 417 via a bond0 interface: vlan=vlan417:bond0

VLANs are specified by the number in one of two supported naming conventions: vlan### or iface.###.

Require network access

If you require networking for Anaconda to work (such as requiring disk drivers or kickstarts from the network), you should also add the following to ensure that the installation continues once the network is available.

  • rd.neednet
  • inst.waitfornet=30

Troubleshooting

You can get additional information by appending the following kernel boot arguments: systemd.log_target=console systemd.log_level=debug

Anaconda installer doesn't start after boot

When booting from network using a kickstart file, Red Hat/CentOS/Rocky Linux is stuck on a systemd screen 

Starting Hardware RNG Entropy Gatherer Wake threshold service
Starting Hold until boot process finishes up...
Starting Login Service...
** Stuck here **

You most likely selected text mode. For some reason, on Rocky Linux 8, Anaconda doesn't appear on tty1 anymore. Instead, it gets started inside a tmux session. If something is causing the kickstart to require user intervention, you need to enter tty2 (Alt - Ctrl - F2) and then enter the tmux session (tmux attach).

Dracut hangs at pre-pivot

I hit a snag where dracut hangs after loading the mpt3sas disk driver after booting from a virtual media CD image via iDRAC. I eventually was able to get the boot to work reliably after adding rd.live.ram to force the entire initrd image to be loaded into ram.

See also

Various Linux Notes
Linux Tools and Utilites
Package Management
Linux Distributions
Networking
Containers