Hello
I am attempting to do a network installation of Fedora Core 4 without having to use floppies or CD's.
Using a Dell OptiPlex GX520 booting from the NIC. DHCP options are set to point the PXE booting Dell to a TFTP server containing the pxelinux.0 file and the pxelinux.cfg file (see below):
******************* pxelinux.cfg/default **********************
default linux
serial 0,38400n8
label linux
kernel vmlinuz
append ksdevice=eth0 console=tty0 load_ramdisk=1 initrd=initrd.img network noprobe ks=nfs:10.10.10.10:/path/to/ks.cfg
**********************************************************
The system PXE boots, loads the pxelinux.0 file and launches into the setup. At the "Choose a language" screen (the very first screen) where it is supposed to begin answering the prompts using the ks.cfg file (created with the Kickstart Config Utility) it just sits there waiting and I have to do a manual installation.
It seems as though it's not finding the ks.cfg file. So, I started going through the process manually and when I was prompted for the installation type, I selected NFS. Once I did that, I was prompted to select the type of NIC that I was using.
That being the case, I'm figuring that when the Linux setup is launched, it is at that point no longer connected to the network and therefore cannot connect to the NFS server to get the ks.cfg file. If that is true, then how can I specify the type of NIC from the beginning so that it connects and is able to grab the ks.cfg? If I select a driver from the list, the Broadcom Tigon 3 Ethernet driver seems to work just fine. So, is there a way that I can just tell it from the beginning to load that driver and use it to get the ks.cfg and do the unattended install?
So far, the network installation part is working fine and I can PXE boot into setup and go through the installation manually. The only piece I'm missing is getting it to grab and use the Kickstart file.
Another thing...most of the documentation I've seen on setting up DHCP refers to a Linux-based DHCP server. We're using Win2K DHCP server for this, so if there are other options that I need to specify or whatever, please let me know. I have option 66 set as the TFTP server IP and option 67 is the path to the pxelinux.0 file.
I've checked permissions on the all files and directories in question (pxe kernel, kickstart file, base files, etc.) and they're all wide open for the moment to ensure that's not an issue.
I think I've covered all the pertinent info, but please feel free to ask for clarification on anything.
Feedback and/or ideas are most appreciated!!! Thanks!!!
__________
Daniel J. Carrington
dcarrington@discounttireco.com