CentOS-7 Kickstart falls to a dracut emergency shell

g.navink · 03-01-2015, 07:29 PM

Hi,
Hi I am trying to install centos 7 on a vm using kickstart through Virtual Manager.The vm drops to a dracut emergency shell after 2-3 minutes giving logs on the console for the failure of the installation. It also produces a file /run/initramfs/rdsosreport.txt. I am unable to copy the file to my host machine using scp or cp command.

Error on the vm console :

Code:

Warning: failed to fetch kickstart from inst.ks=http://192.168.122.1/pub/dvd/vmkickstart-ks.cfg
failed to connect to 192.168.122.1:80; No route to host

Warning:Downloading 'http://192.168.122.1/pub/dvd//.treeinfo failed!
Warning: Cant's find installer mainimage path in .treeinfo
Failed: Connect to 192.168.122.1:80; No route to host

The dracut emergency shell gives the ip address of the vm as 192.168.122.23/24 . My host machine is running Apache server on the virbr0 interface with IP address 192.168.122.1.The CentOS image is in /var/www/html/pub/dvd/

I am able to ping the host machine from the dra shell of the vm.
Verified whether the Apache server is functional on the host by typing http://192.168.122.1/pub/dvd/ on the browser. Things are fine and Apache web server is able to show the contents.

Used Virtual Manager to spawn a New VM.In the Virtual Manager wizard gave the URL as http://192.168.122.1/pub/dvd/

and Kickstart URL as : inst.ks=http://192.168.122.1/pub/dvd/vmkickstart-ks.cfg
As the logs suggest it seems the virtual manager has picked the url path correctly.

used a kickstart file generated by successful installation of another vm. modified the directive url accordingly to initiate kickstart.

Can anybody suggest why the kickstart fetching is going wrong?

My Kickstart file:

Code:

#version=RHEL7
# System authorization information
auth --enableshadow --passalgo=sha512

# Use Network installation 
url --url="http://192.168.122.1/pub/dvd/"
# Run the Setup Agent on first boot
firstboot --enable
ignoredisk --only-use=vda
# Keyboard layouts
keyboard --vckeymap=us --xlayouts='us'
# System language
lang en_US.UTF-8

# Network information
network  --bootproto=dhcp --device=eth0 --onboot=off --ipv6=auto
network  --hostname=vmkickstart.example.com
# Root password
rootpw --iscrypted $6$yO.qsFDtH0H1/oqf$7aHXiM4rpuhQNKv2.b5wqvRihYqqvLMmXfYt8gngpijxATOhpqWqmIcFEoxuQO.Vfy.D1GnTp62tnQ7iDqwZ00
# System timezone
timezone Asia/Kolkata --isUtc --nontp
# X Window System configuration information
xconfig  --startxonboot
# System bootloader configuration
bootloader --location=mbr --boot-drive=vda
autopart --type=lvm
# Partition clearing information
clearpart --none --initlabel 

%packages
...
...
%end

g.navink · 03-01-2015, 08:55 PM

added firewall-rule for http,https traffic in the host machine where the kickstart file is residing.

Now the no route to host error disappears. But still i get the error : The requested URL is not found Error 404.
when fetching the kickstart file..I suppose earlier firewall in the host machine was blocking the http request from the vm.

But the vm proceeds to install CentOS7 from the network installation path: http://192.168.122.1/pub/dvd/ and waits for my input for setting the data and time etc.. as usual in a manual method of installation. The http method of installation was given to the virtual manager. I quit the installation as the purpose is to install via kickstart.

To cross-check whether the kickstart file is accessible, opened firefox browser and typed the URL and was able to see the kickstart file.

May i know why the error "The requested URL is not found Error 404. happens when trying to fetch the kickstart file.

Mr.Russy · 03-04-2015, 12:08 AM

Couple of things to check are as follows:
1. On the host, are you running SELinux in enforcing mode? If so is the kickstart file have the correct selinux file context? (Sometimes you'll be able to see the file in a browser locally but it fails remotely as would be the case in the VMS)
2. If you look into the httpd logs, do you see the request for the kick start file and if so what's the exact error?
3. Are there any errors on the host in /var/log:message that may point you to a possible issue?