kickstart oddity: interfaces trying to DHCP

[Don Vanco - Linux Ninja]

I can't recall with 100% certainty that this is not a "default" behavior with kickstart installs - but here's what's at issue:

in my ICLE kickstart I have defined the "other 3" interfaces via DHCP - e.g.:
network --device=eth0 --bootpoto=dhcp

When the installer starts (after correctly using eth2 as the boot interface) it tries to bring these interfaces up for some unknown reason. Problem is there's no DHCP servers at present - but I still want the ethX files generated. This hangs the install.

Is this a kickstart-ism or an ICLE-ism, and can I fix it / make it work?


On a similar note - the ICLE kickstart """macros""" strip out the MAC addresses from the network conf files by default - how can I safely edit this function such that the MACs are left unmolested?

TIA
Don

[Stuart Browne]

The first one is a kickstart-ism. There are a number of ways around this, but the usual is to append 'ksdevice=' setting to hard-wire to a given device for kickstart.

If you're using the same hardware type over and over, this is pretty safe. But it does have one value which says "Use the device I first got a response on": 'ksdevice=link'.

During a kickstart install, the network device will retrieve a DHCP address 2-3 times. PXE if you're doing that, followed by the initial-setup, followed by anaconda.

This is why it gets confused.

I don't know how to answer the rest of your questions, so you'll have to wait for someone else ;)

[Don Vanco - Linux Ninja]

To be clear:
I'm not talking about the ksdevice here (which ICLE defines automagically) - I'm talking about interfaces I've defined IN the kickstart for the resulting installation. They have nothing to do with the kickstart other than the fact that they are entries in the file that define what will be present on my running system. Hence my confusion - I've never seen a kickstart try to do anything with these interfaces DURING the install of the OS......

[Ivan Ferreira · Accepted solution]

What if you change bootproto=none?

[Ivan Ferreira]

Another thing:

>>> no DHCP servers at present - but I still want the ethX files generated.

If you set --onboot no, for example:

network --device eth3 --onboot no --bootproto dhcp --hostname

The interfaces configuration files will be generated, with ONBOOT=NO option set.

[Dan_Eaton]

Don,

Below is an excerpt from the kickstart section of a RHEL Installation Guide:

"The network option configures networking information for kickstart installations via a network as well as for the installed system."

Although not completely clear, it seems to be implying that each specified network configuration line in the kickstart file applies both to the actual install and to the system after booting the fully installed OS. Based on this I believe that the behavior you are seeing where it attempts to bring up all interfaces specified in the kickstart file is the "default" behavior. Don't know how the "--onboot=no" would behave in the installer and besides, it may be that you want the interface to come up by default in the installed system.

Hope this helps,

Dan