Kickstart package list

Support
1

Do you have a list of packages to install AlmaLinux using kickstart. I have all aspects of kickstart working via a tftp server. Partition gets auto created etc. But just need a package list. Previously centos had groups in the package list that we could use. Do you guys have a list for Alma8.6. So that I can start my install. I have my repositories correctly configured using the os repos. Thanks

2

you probably want the comps.xml file for the groups, but they rarely change - the usual @core, @file-server, @development and so on are still there.

I tend to use this as a starting point:

%packages
@core
chrony
net-tools
tar
%end
3

Thanks for that. Do you know how I would go about getting the comps.xml file for the groups?

4

click the word “comps.xml” its a link to the file, or click this:

https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/8.6/BaseOS/x86_64/os/repodata/dfdcc5e2174d32d93cb70a271594c84a8e7f37a0076c165e04b8709de01925af-comps.xml

from a quick grep the groups are:

$ grep -o '<id>.*</id>' dfdcc5e2174d32d93cb70a271594c84a8e7f37a0076c165e04b8709de01925af-comps.xml 
<id>hardware-support</id>
<id>performance</id>
<id>headless-management</id>
<id>remote-system-management</id>
<id>scientific</id>
<id>fonts</id>
<id>standard</id>
<id>server-product</id>
<id>smb-server</id>
<id>network-server</id>
<id>gnome-desktop</id>
<id>security-tools</id>
<id>development</id>
<id>mainframe-access</id>
<id>legacy-unix</id>
<id>graphical-admin-tools</id>
<id>mail-server</id>
<id>anaconda-tools</id>
<id>infiniband</id>
<id>large-systems</id>
<id>core</id>
<id>dial-up</id>
<id>hardware-monitoring</id>
<id>network-tools</id>
<id>file-server</id>
<id>base</id>
<id>workstation-product</id>
<id>smart-card</id>
<id>python-web</id>
<id>system-tools</id>
<id>platform-devel</id>
<id>additional-devel</id>
<id>conflicts-baseos</id>
<id>network-file-system-client</id>
<id>networkmanager-submodules</id>
<id>development</id>
<id>base-system</id>
<id>servers</id>
<id>desktops</id>
<id>custom-environment</id>
<id>minimal-environment</id>
5

Thanks for the list.

6

You can also run dnf group -v list that lists groups. (Not all, there is some ‘hidden’ option to show more.)

If you have existing installation with satisfactory set of packages, then it’s /root/ contains kickstart file with the choices that were made during installation, including a list of packages.

However, installation is only part of the meal; afterwards comes maintenance.
The list of packages does evolve and you probably want the changes to every system,
rather than reinstall with new kickstart (which remains an option).

For that part there are configuration management systems. Red Hat documents “system
roles” that they provide together with ansible-core. Ansible is not the only config
manager; there are at least Chef, Puppet, and Salt too.

I do these days minimal installations and then run Ansible “play” on my machine that executes “tasks” in the target machine via ssh. That is, “push” config changes.
(I do have kickstart for deploying public ssh key so I can connect with ssh – el9 by default disables password authentication for root.)

One could include ansible-core in the kickstart package list and run ansible-pull in %post, which “pulls” a play from online (git?) repo and executes it in localhost.

7

But your assuming I have almalinux installed to run the dnf group -v list command. I am still at the kickstart installing stage. I use ansible, foreman and puppet for my deployment.