Require kick Start Configuration

Hi,

We need kick Start Configuration for installation of ISO .
Please let me know, do we have any document for kick start configuration or any reference link which we can refer .

Hi @NehaJuneja ,

Perform a normal install on a system, configure it during install as you wish. Then, you can “magically” discover:

/root/anaconda-ks.cfg

Tadaaa… :tada:

Use this file to replicate the install on all other systems.
Some details can be found in this tutorial.

Regards,
Bogdan

have a look around my repo, there’s a bunch of alma/centos/rhel kickstarts there

centos8_cis.cfg is probably the most complex, the others are simpler and use ansible to do the hard work post-install.

also Kickstart Syntax Reference :: Fedora Docs

and GitHub - CentOS/Community-Kickstarts: Kickstart configurations and snippets provided by community members

2 Likes

That is a good point: configuration management can make and keep setup up to date. With that the install (kickstart) does not do more than bare minimum.

depends how you do it.

i’ve moved to preferring to do all the hardening in the kickstart, so at first boot you are good to go. it also makes handing out prebuilt images easier as it just requires a qcow2/ova file and not any infrastructure.

but as you say, with kickstart repeating the hardening post-install is not really possible, which is where ansible shines.

Hi @bogdan_ro ,

Thanks for the quick response.
I found the kick start file in root, but how to integrate it in my ISO ,I have added it in my directory and create ISO, but still it show graphical UI to install in ISO. I need to customize it, so that ISO install automatically without using graphical User interface.

Regards
Neha

you can’t really do that, and the alternatives all depends on your environment and if you want total automation (kvm/pxe) or are ok to manually type the location (esxi/ilom)

with libvirt (qemu-kvm) you can simply inject it into the initrd using e.g:

virt-install --extra-args='inst.ks=file:kickstart.cfg' --initrd-inject=kickstart.cfg

with esxi you can put the kickstart.cfg file on a virtual floppy and then press tab (or “e” if you’re using uefi) to interrupt the installer and append this to the grub Linux… line:

inst.ks=hd:fd0:/kickstart.cfg

with an ilom that supports virtual cdroms you can put the kickstart file on a 2nd iso and then boot using:

inst.ks=cdrom:/kickstart.cfg

PXE is yet another option - you could pass the kickstart info from dhcp.

there’s loads of different ways to do it that depend on your infrastructure, which we can’t help you with, but editing the alma iso is the worst way to go.

see also Starting a Kickstart Installation

i tried this myself last night, its pretty simple actually, although i wouldn’t advise it.

so you could unpack the iso image to a directory, make your changes and use mkisofs to create a new iso, however i just wanted to add the kickstart file and edit isolinux.cfg so i just used xorriso to edit the existing iso (keeping the boot flags):

xorriso -indev AlmaLinux-8.5-x86_64-minimal.iso -outdev AlmaLinux8.iso \
    -boot_image any keep -as mkisofs -boot-info-table -boot-load-size 4 -- \
    -add isolinux.cfg ks.cfg -- -mv /isolinux.cfg /isolinux/

the changes i made to isolinux.cfg to get it to auto-run the kickstart without interaction were:

so with this you put the cd in the drive, boot from it, make a cup of tea, come back 15mins later and your server is running alma 8.5