Changes in virt-install and Kickstart in RHEL7

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army provisions

If you are planning to move to RHEL7 you may have to change your kickstart and virt-install scripts. The virt-install changes will also apply to Debian based hosts.

Below is a working example of a virt-install script. I had to make changed to the console related bits. Console allows for headless operation using virsh console, without having to fiddle with VNC or other clumsy graphic interfaces.

A virt-install script

#!/bin/sh

virt-install -n altair -r 1024 --vcpus 1 \
    --description='rhel7 DR development' \
    -l http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/centos/7/os/x86_64/ \
    --os-type=linux --os-variant=rhel7 \
    --disk pool=vg,bus=virtio,size=40 \
    --network bridge=br0,model=virtio \
    --autostart \
    --graphics none \
    --console pty,target_type=serial \
    --extra-args "console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial \
    inst.sshd ks=http://172.16.100.1/ks/altair.cfg"

The Anaconda syntax for kickstart is a little different or more strict that it was previously. I had to account for the following changes.

  1. Added url line.

  2. Added repo line.

  3. Added %end tags.

IPv6 warning

Sadly, Anaconda still does not support IPv6 fully. The thorn in my tests was the gateway setting. Anaconda allows only one gateway network setting which prevents you from configuring a dual stack host. What is needed is a gateway and a gateway6 option. A work around is to configure one stack in the post section.

Kickstart for RHEL/CentOS 7 

# Kickstat file manually created by Neil Watson.

install
text

#
# KS server TODO
#
url --url=http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/centos/7/os/x86_64/
repo --name "CentOS 7" --baseurl=http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/centos/7/os/x86_64/ --cost=100

# 
# Language support TODO
#
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us

#
# Network settings TODO
#
network --device=eth0 --bootproto=dhcp --hostname=altair.watson-wilson.ca
# Not shown, but configure ipv6 in the %post section.

#
# Security TODO
#
rootpw XXXXXXX
sshpw --username=root XXXXXX

firewall --disabled
selinux --disabled
authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
timezone America/Toronto

bootloader --location=mbr --append="rhgb quiet"
# Extra console bits probably not neeeded any more.
#bootloader --location=mbr --append="rhgb quiet console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8"

#
# Users TODO
#
user --name=neil --password=XXXXXXX

#
# Partitioning and filesystems TODO
#
# 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

# HP proliants with RIAD use desk device cciss/c0d0
# Standard scisi disk is sda
# KVM guests use vda

zerombr
clearpart --initlabel --all

part /boot --fstype ext4 --size=200 --ondisk=vda --asprimary
part pv.3 --size=100 --grow --ondisk=vda
volgroup vg01 pv.3
logvol / --fstype ext4 --name=lv01 --vgname=vg01 --size=3072 --grow
logvol swap --fstype swap --name=swaplv01 --vgname=vg01 --size=1024

#
# Packages TODO
#
%packages --ignoremissing
vim*
screen
tmux
openssl-devel
pcre-devel
make
gcc
fakeroot
%end

%post

chvt 3

#
# SSH TODO
#
mkdir /home/neil/.ssh
chown neil:neil /home/neil/.ssh
chmod 700 /home/neil/.ssh
cat <> /home/neil/.ssh/authorized_keys
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQ...
EOF

%end

Ifconfig not longer in RHEL7

The venerable ifconfig has finally been removed from the default install. This should not be a surprise to anyone. The replacement, ip, has been available for many years, yet some folks have still been caught off guard.

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