[SOLVED] Kickstart RHEL6 from http accessible repo.

i4Giron · 03-06-2013, 02:36 PM

I seem to pxeboot just fine, the ks gets as far as formatting partitions, then when it should start installing is bails with an error about /tmp/.treeinfo doesn't have headers... Googled this a lot but can't seem to find a solution.

The repo works just fine when you run yum install or yum groupinstall but for some reason it doesn't appear to work for ks.

Specifics:
Yum server is running CentOS6.2, and is serving out several CentOS and RHEL repos, all functional as yum repos. I'm able to ks build from all of the CentOS repos but none of the RHEL repos.

At first the grouplist didn't work for the rhel repos so I fixed that hoping it was the problem but no luck.

Any thoughts? I'm hoping i'm just missing some stupid simple step... feel free to ask obvious questions

i4Giron · 03-07-2013, 08:37 AM

So 100ish views and no reponses, maybe my post didn't make sense

i'll try again:

Where would you start looking if you could Kickstart from your CentOS yum repo's but not your RHEL yum repo's? Keeping in mind all the repo's work using "yum install whatever" and the Kickstart doesn't fail until after if formats the partitions.

How I made the RHEL repo:

Code:

# cp -r /mnt/dvd/* /opt/www/html/rhel/6.3Server/os/x86_64/.

This allowed the yum command to work from my existing 6.3 servers. but yum groupinstall did not work.. so I tried this next command:

Code:

# createrepo -g /opt/www/html/rhel/6.3.Server/os/x86_x64/Server/repodata/*-comps-rhel6-Server.xml -o /opt/www/html/rhel/6.3Server/os/x86_64/Server /opt/www/html/rhel/6.3Server/os/x86_64/Packages

For some reason I had to use full paths or it would say it couldn't find the locations. Anywho, that fixed the yum groupinstall but still no luck on kickstart working.

Here is my kickstart file (copied from an "installed from dvd" server and modified):

Code:

# Kickstart file automatically generated by anaconda.

#version=DEVEL
install
url --url=http://192.168.2.17/rhel/6.3Server/os/x86_64
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
#text
network --onboot yes --device eth0 --mtu=1500 --noipv6 --bootproto=dhcp
firewall --disabled
authconfig --enableshadow --passalgo=sha512
selinux --disabled
timezone --utc America/New_York
bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda --append=" rhgb crashkernel=auto quiet"

# The following is the partition information you requested
# Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed
# here so unless you clear all partitions first, this is
# not guaranteed to work

zerombr
clearpart --all --initlabel --drives=sda
part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=500
part / --fstype=ext4 --asprimary --size=7500
part swap --asprimary --size=6000
part /opt --fstype=ext4 --grow --asprimary --size=1

#repo --name="Red Hat Enterprise Linux"  --baseurl=http://192.168.2.17/rhel/6.2Server/os/x86_64/Server --cost=100

%packages
@base
@client-mgmt-tools
@console-internet
@core
@debugging
@directory-client
@hardware-monitoring
@large-systems
@network-file-system-client
@performance
@perl-runtime
@server-platform
@server-policy
pax
python-dmidecode
oddjob
sgpio
certmonger
pam_krb5
krb5-workstation
perl-DBD-SQLite
%end

samBl · 03-07-2013, 05:17 PM

I have only done this with Centos and never with a pxe boot. Nothing jumps out as wrong but I would not call myself an expert. I don't have access to the RHEL knowledge base but this might be a good place to start https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/solutions/45837

i4Giron · 03-08-2013, 07:17 AM

Woot! Thank you

Because the anaconda traceback complained that /tmp/.treeinfo did not have headers (it didn't say it couldn't find the file) I assumed the file was being generated incorrectly. I read that knowledge base article and it says this:

- Make sure the bootable installation tree (listed with the url directive) contains the .treeinfo file from the installation disc

HAHA. Sure enough it's on the disc and because I was using cp -r it didn't copy the hidden file into my repo. I grabbed the .treeinfo from the disc and all is well.

Thank you again samBl!

i4Giron · 03-08-2013, 07:19 AM

ps. CentOS (which I normally use) does not need this .treeinfo file

edit: Actually that's a lie... I just checked an my centos directories have it! Not sure how those made it through my copy and not the rhel ones but whatever, they all work now.

samBl · 03-09-2013, 05:53 AM

Well I'm happy that worked for you. From the title it looked like it would help.