Hi all,

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?

Kind regards,

Eric

Shouldn't you start at Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Installation Guide Ch 26.6. Parameters for kickstart installations?

Hello unSpawn,

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:
I have/had in my ks.cfg the following line in RHEL5.5:
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:
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'.

Kind regards,

Eric

"The groups must exist before the user account is created."


"If not provided, this defaults to /home/<username>."


I don't see it in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist....onda+kickstart . RHEL 6 is in beta so help is appreciated: care to add it?


That'll be https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=651445 ?

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Hi unSpawn,

According to the same documentation, I imagine that you're misinterpreting it:
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.
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?
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.

Thanks for the bug report about the LVM.

Kind regards,

Eric