I have a CentOS 6.5 VM that I'm installing with an automated kickstart script. I use the exact same script for installing on real hardware and it works fine. However, when installing on a VM, as it hits the rootfiles rpm the installer hangs for a long time, something like 30 minutes. It does eventually complete the install with no errors, other than this one package takes forever to install.

I'm installing the OS into a disk image created using dd, specifically

dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/test-vm.img bs=1 count=0 seek=100G

This creates a sparse file of course, which is what I typically use for these throw away VMs that I work with. As I'm writing this I wonder if it is precisely because I'm using a sparse file that I'm experiencing this issue. The odd thing the other packages install fine. Is there something special about the rootfiles package?

I'll try creating a disk image that isn't sparse to see if the behavior is different.