I tried to using kickstart to do server upgrade from RHEL4.8 to RHEL 5.5 automatically, non-interactive.

I have two internal disks:
sda --- OS disk
sdb --- application disk
"sdb" is under LVM control, which has LVM info in second sector, I didn't do "parted" to label sdb before I run "pvcreate", so there is nothing on first sector on sdb, which caused the anaconda not happy, and kickstart did not honor "ignoredisk" option, I always got:

Welcome to Red Hat +--------------+ Warning +--------------+ | | | The partition table on device sdb ^ | | (ATA HITACHI HDS7225S 238465 MB) # | | was unreadable. : | | To create new partitions it must : | | be initialized, causing the loss : | | of ALL DATA on this drive. : | | : | | This operation will override any : | | previous installation choices : | | about which drives to ignore. : | | : | | Would you like to initialize this v | | | | +-----+ +----+ | | | Yes | | No | | | +-----+ +----+ | | | | | +---------------------------------------+

I need to select "No" to continue the upgrade. Which is annoying, I want automatically do the upgrade. BTW, after I select "No", the upgrade worked well.

Here is my kickstart profile:
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
ignoredisk --only-use=sda
bootloader --location=mbr
clearpart --none
upgrade
url --url http://192.168.1.100/repository/rhel..._64/os/server/
skipx
text
reboot

and I tried the following options:
clearpart --none --drives=sda
clearpart --none without --initlabel --drives=sdb

and I did not get the initalize popped up window, but it did not hornor "without" either, it still touched the first sector of sdb, which I don't want it.

I need help to make the kickstart to ignore the disk "sdb" during upgrade process, or automatically feed "no" to the disk initialize question from the kickstart profile.

You shouldn't need the ignoredisk or clearpart lines at all, the default is not to touch any disks/partitions - try removing the lines and see if it works.

kbp, thx for you suggestion. I tried the upgrade without "ignoredisk" and "clearpart",
I still got the disk initialize prompt.

Any more ideas?

I installed anaconda-, and anaconda-runtime on my server,
and I didn't find "ignoredisk" in /usr/lib/anaconda/upgrade.py,
and Redhat does not support ignoredisk with upgrade.

So now I need to find a way to auto feed the "NO" answer to
disk initialize prompt during upgrade.
Anybody has any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

It looks a lot like this bug, but maybe it didn't get fixed in 5.5 (no result listed), can you try upgrading to 5.8 ?

kbp, thanks for your suggestion.
I have already tried 5.7, same results.
I'll try 5.8 beta today.

I tried 5.8, same result.

and I dug around the python script for this annoying prompt:
/usr/lib/anaconda/partedUtils.py

else:
deviceFile = isys.makeDevInode(drive, "/dev/" + drive)
dev = parted.PedDevice.get(deviceFile)

msg = _("The partition table on device %s (%s %-0.f MB) was unreadable.\n"
"To create new partitions it must be initialized, "
"causing the loss of ALL DATA on this drive.\n\n"
"This operation will override any previous "
"installation choices about which drives to "
"ignore.\n\n"
"Would you like to initialize this drive, "
"erasing ALL DATA?") % (drive, dev.model, getDeviceSizeMB (dev),)

rc = intf.messageWindow(_("Warning"), msg, type="yesno")

if rc != 0:
return True

self._removeDisk(drive)
return False

Anybody knows how to auto feed the answer "no" from the kickstart profile?

There is no options as far as I can tell, the problem is that it wasn't fixed due to a lack of response so it really depends on how quickly you want it resolved.

- add to the bugzilla and become a contact
or:
- hack the anaconda files yourself and repackage