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I'm migrating a custom RHEL5.5 install DVD to RHEL6 and am having some trouble with the Kickstart script. All things work great with 5.5 but if just copying it over to use with version 6 some things don't work. For example creating a user, doesn't create his home directory, neither automatically nor when using --homedir option. Another example when creating logical volumes I used to use the --percent option with RHEL5.5 which worked perfectly but for some reason crashes under 6. When I set the size to fixed then it works.
Does anyone have any idea where I can find up to date documentation for kickstart configuration under RHEL6?
That's exactly where I started and hence my 'quest' for up to date documentation. One example that doesn't work is the --homedir option when creating a user:
Quote:
user (optional)
Creates a new user on the system.
user --name=<username> [--groups=<list>] [--homedir=<homedir>] [--password=<password>] [--iscrypted] [--shell=<shell>] [--uid=<uid>]
--name= — Provides the name of the user. This option is required.
--groups= — In addition to the default group, a comma separated list of group names the user should belong to. The groups must exist before the user account is created.
--homedir= — The home directory for the user. If not provided, this defaults to /home/<username>.
--password= — The new user's password. If not provided, the account will be locked by default.
--iscrypted= — Is the password provided by --password already encrypted or not?
--shell= — The user's login shell. If not provided, this defaults to the system default.
--uid= — The user's UID. If not provided, this defaults to the next available non-system UID.
I have/had in my ks.cfg the following line in RHEL5.5:
Code:
user --name=cdnadmin --password=<encryptedpassword> --iscrypted
which worked like a charm, creating the user, group, home dir and copied over the skeleton files, just like it would do when creating a user manually with useradd.
However, when using the same option with RHEL6, the user gets created but not the group and homedir. Also the skeleton files don't get copied. So I added the --homedir option like this:
Code:
user --name=cdnadmin --homedir=/home/cdnadmin --password=<encryptedpassword> --iscrypted
but no luck there. The only option I have is to add the user manually later on. The advantage of the user option in kickstart is that you can set the encrypted password so that a user can log in at once.
Another example that works in 5.5 is the LVM partitioning where you can use --percent to set the size. This option made my installation crash. When I set it to fixed size it all works. No big problem indeed but it would be handy to know what else they've changed at RedHat and is 'not documented yet'.
"The groups must exist before the user account is created."
According to the same documentation, I imagine that you're misinterpreting it:
Quote:
--groups= — In addition to the default group, a comma separated list of group names the user should belong to. The groups must exist before the user account is created.
As I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, this only concerns additional groups and not the default group (same as username) that gets created whenever a new user is added.
Quote:
Originally Posted by unSpawn
"If not provided, this defaults to /home/<username>."
Should be, but that's the thing, if --homedir is not supplied/provided, the /home/<username> doesn't get created. That's why I tried with the --homedir option but without effect. Maybe a bug?
Quote:
Originally Posted by unSpawn
RHEL 6 is in beta so help is appreciated: care to add it?
As of November 10th 2010, according to RedHat Enterprise Linux 6, is no longer beta. When downloading the ISO name (rhel-server-6.0-x86_64-dvd.iso) neither indicates beta.
I'll do some more searching tomorrow to confirm the --homedir problem and gather the necessary information to report a bug.
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