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Auto Install Linux Over Network

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Kickstart server enables you to install Linux over the network via the HTTP, FTP, or NFS protocols. I choose to use the HTTP protocol here because it was the quickest to setup and slightly easier than the other two protocols.

1. Kickstart Server Preparation

Step 1. Install and start the Apache web server:

Step 2. Create the following directory to hold the contents of Red Hat DVD:

# mkdir /var/www/pub

Step 3. Mount and copy the files from DVD to the directory previously created:

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt

# cp -vR /mnt/* /var/www/pub

Step 4. Create kickstart directory and kickstart file. To understand how kickstart file work, you can take a look at http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/scientific4/docs/rhel-sag-en-4/s1-kickstart2-options.html

# mkdir /var/www/pub/kickstart

# touch /var/www/pub/kickstart/centos-base.cfg

A nice trick for creating kickstart file without having to manually type one out is to walk through an installation normally. After you finish installing a system, a file called anaconda-ks.cfg is created in the root user’s home directory. This file is actually a kickstart file and you may want to copy it over to your kickstart server.

If you don’t want to reinstall your system manually, you can use the GUI tool (system-config-kickstart) to build a kickstart file from scratch.

2. Automating Kickstart

Step 1. Make a directory structure for the TFTP server.