cobbler kickstart does not pull in the http: ks file?
 

Terry McIntyre wrote:

I've been trying to get a kickstart working with cobbler for a while,
and it just isn't working. I am totally missing something, but what?



Ok, so you're PXE'ing the system.... I don't have all the information
I need to go on, so I'll start you off with some info and if you still

have problems we can take it from there.

In order for PXE to work, several conditions must be satisifed.
"Cobbler check" looks after most of these and will let you know
about most of the common setup problems. If you have not run "cobbler
check", do so now and fix any errors it reports.


The most common problem is if your DHCP server does not set a
"next-server" line, which is especially likely if DHCP is run
from another box and is not under your control. If this happens, your
server will be requesting PXE files from /another/ box or possibly
none at all. The next-server in your DHCP config must point at your
cobbler server. If using cobbler to manage a dhcp configuration,
most of this is provided for you, and that information is included on
the main cobbler page and on the Wiki... most likely you already

have working DHCP so you just need to talk with your DHCP admin.

First check to see that while your computer is booting, that it is
contacting a server over TFTP and that this is your cobbler server.


As for your server requesting a dynamic IP when booting, this is normal,
and is required in order to actually use PXE. The system
will DHCP for the first time and then configure the system for a static
IP on subsequent restarts.

If you do not see your computer requesting a TFTP file while it is
booting -- that's a DHCP problem.


If it successfully requests the kernel/initrd, goes into Anaconda, and
then just doesn't request the kickstart file, that's more of an
indication that the web server is not reachable from the install
location -- which is a network problem. If that is the case, use a
machine on the network to verify the kickstart file can be retrieved
with wget/curl or a browser.


I also saw from IRC last night you're using a pretty old version of
Cobbler -- PXE has worked fine in all versions, though you should
upgrade to 0.8.2. It will make debugging easier and eliminate some
potential communication errors when talking about things. The latest
version of Cobbler is available in EPEL for both EL4 and 5 according to
the instructions on the Cobbler download page.


Hopefully that helps, if not, let me know more info and we'll see if we
can't fix you...


--Michael



The target system: IBM x3850 M/T 8864
Trying to install RHEL 4.4

I added -vvvv flags to /etc/xinet.d/tftp to follow the progress of tftp

Apr 3 22:17:57 admin in.tftpd[3261]: RRQ from 192.168.62.172 filename
/pxelinux.0
Apr 3 22:17:57 admin in.tftpd[3261]: tftp: client does not accept options
Apr 3 22:17:57 admin in.tftpd[3262]: RRQ from 192.168.62.172 filename
/pxelinux.0
Apr 3 22:17:59 admin in.tftpd[3263]: RRQ from 192.168.62.172 filename
/pxelinux.cfg/01-00-14-5e-bc-69-e2
Apr 3 22:17:59 admin in.tftpd[3264]: RRQ from 192.168.62.172 filename
//images/rhel4.4/vmlinuz
Apr 3 22:17:59 admin in.tftpd[3265]: RRQ from 192.168.62.172 filename
//images/rhel4.4/initrd.img

-- which looks reasonable. All files listed above exist, and are
world-readable.

Contents of /pxelinux.cfg/01-00-14-5e-bc-69-e2

default linux
prompt 0
timeout 1
label linux
kernel /images/rhel4.4/vmlinuz
append ksdevice=eth0 lang=en_US text
syslog=192.168.63.57:25150 initrd=/images/rhel4.4/initrd.img
ks=http://192.168.63.57/cblr/kickstarts_sys/00:14:5e:bc:69:e2/ks.cfg

Now, when I put the
http://192.168.63.57/cblr/kickstarts_sys/00:14:5e:bc:69:e2/ks.cfg url
in my browser, it works. I also see a log entry at
/etc/http/logs/access_log when I request the page:

192.168.63.245 - - [03/Apr/2008:14:59:03 -0700] "GET
/cblr/kickstarts_sys/00:14:5e:bc:69:e2/ks.cfg HTTP/1.1" 200 1730 "-"
"Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080325
Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.13"

When I boot the server from the network, I do not see a log entry for
the kickstart file, and it requests a dynamic IP address in spite of
the kickstart file specifying a static IP address.

#System language
lang en_US
#Language modules to install
langsupport en_US
#System keyboard
keyboard us
#System mouse
mouse
#Sytem timezone
timezone --utc America/Los_Angeles
#Root password
rootpw changeme
#Reboot after installation
reboot
#Use text mode install
text
#Install OS instead of upgrade
install
#Use Web installation
url --url http://192.168.63.57/4.4/OneCd/
#System bootloader configuration
bootloader --location=mbr
#Clear the Master Boot Record
zerombr yes
#Partition clearing information
clearpart --all --initlabel
#Disk partitioning information
part / --fstype ext3 --size 5000
part /boot --fstype ext3 --size 300
part swap --size 10240
part /var --fstype ext3 --size 5120
part /home --fstype ext3 --size 3036
part /opt --fstype ext3 --size 3036
part /usr --fstype ext3 --size 1 --grow
#System authorization infomation
auth --useshadow --enablemd5
network --bootproto=static --ip=192.168.62.172 --netmask=255.255.254.0
--gateway=192.168.62.40 --nameserver=192.168.67.154 --device=eth0
--hostname=rac12.crm.bizsys.tmcs --onboot=on
#Firewall configuration
firewall --disabled
selinux --disabled
# disable the firstboot config
firstboot --disable
#Do not configure XWindows
skipx
#Package install information
%packages --resolvedeps
@ development-tools
@ admin-tools
@ system-tools
@ server-cfg
kernel-smp
grub
e2fsprogs
perl
lynx
postfix
sysstat
%post

hostname rac12.crm.bizsys.tmcs

rpm -e sendmail kudzu redhat-config-mouse kernel-pcmcia-cs ppp rp-pppoe
wvdial redhat-config-network-tui redhat-lsb

chkconfig keytable off
chkconfig rhnsd off
chkconfig iptables off
chkconfig xfs off
chkconfig gpm off
chkconfig --level 345 ntpd on
chkconfig --level 345 snmpd on
chkconfig --level 2345 postfix on


Thanks in advance for any assistance!







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cobbler kickstart does not pull in the http: ks file?
 

Alex Chekholko wrote:

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:42:31 -0700
"Terry McIntyre" <terry.mcintyre@gmail.com> wrote:



I've been trying to get a kickstart working with cobbler for a while,
and it just isn't working. I am totally missing something, but what?

The target system: IBM x3850 M/T 8864
Trying to install RHEL 4.4




Does this machine have multiple NICs? What happens if you disable all
but one?


I had a similar problem, and that was my solution, documented here:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/96509133/m/258002348831

HTH,



Cobbler makes this pretty easy now -- so you can set it up to PXE off
either interface. You can add multiple NICs to your system records. I
originally added this for creating dual-homed virtual machines, but it
works just as well to help PXE physical boxes.


cobbler system add --name=demobox --mac=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:EE
--profile=demoprofile

cobbler system edit --name=demobox --interface=1 --mac=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

The first edit applies to interface 0 (the default), and in the second
invocation, we are editing interface 1. There is no actual correlation
between the numbers and the "eth0/eth1" numbers you'll get later ...
it's the MAC that matters.


The only catch here is that if you need to edit them one at a time (this
was done to keep the command line parser simple) and if you add one

too many, you can only delete them through the web interface.

Using multiple interfaces is actually a a lot easier to visualize when
using the WebUI, so I recommend taking a look at that.


--Michael


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cobbler kickstart does not pull in the http: ks file?
 

To be sure that anaconda is using the card you want it to (I've noticed
inconsistencies between the eth#s in bios, anaconda & 'normal' kernels),
add --kopts="device=$nic_mac_address"


Terry McIntyre wrote:

Thanks for the tips. I am using cobbler to manage the dhcp, it does
have the next-server lines, the dhcp and tftp logs ( using -vvvv )
switch show everything working up to the point of requesting the
htttp: kickstart file.

I did pull that file from another machine ( my laptop, using http ) on
the same network. Used the exact same URL cut-n-pasted from the
cobbler file. Therefore, the www server seems to be working fine, as
is the network.

Only one interface is connected to the network; there are four
interfaces. I do not set up the other three in the kickstart file, but
that probably does not matter, since the kickstart file is not being
used.

Am upgrading cobbler -- will try again shortly.

Thanks again!

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cobbler kickstart does not pull in the http: ks file?
 

Apr 4 15:43:23 admin dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:23 admin dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.62.172 to
00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:29 admin dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:29 admin dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.62.172 to
00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:40 admin dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:40 admin dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.62.172 to
00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:50 admin dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:50 admin dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.62.172 to
00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:50 admin dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0
Apr 4 15:43:50 admin dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.62.172 to
00:15:17:3a:c2:78 via eth0

Why is it looping?




Ah, the dreaded installer DHCP problem. This seems to indicate that
your system failed to DHCP in time. There are known timing issues with
Anaconda at that stage, after it resets the network card, where pump
doesn't have a sufficiently long timeout.


Here's a custom search engine for kickstart-list@redhat.com:

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=016811804524159694721%3A1h7btspnxtu

It probably is a network configuration issue -- most likely this one:

http://www.redhat.com/archives/kickstart-list/2002-August/msg00041.html

There's also a writeup here:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/NetworkIssues

Hopefully that gets you further along. If Anaconda can't get network
info, it will prompt for it -- it never had a chance to request the
kickstart in your case because it didn't have an IP at that stage.


--Michael

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