Creating a Kickstart Provisioning Server

You're going to love this part. All you have to do to create a kickstart server is to set up an FTP, HTTP, or NFS server and dump the CDs on it in an easy-to-reach place. It can even be password protected if you want.

All the footwork is really done on the client side with our boot media, anaconda, and our ks.cfg files.

Tip

Some administrators who like to centrally administer their kickstart files and who don't want a lot of outdated kickstart floppies or the like out there floating around, put their actual production ks.cfg files out on the network in a centralized place. This way when they make an update to the centralized ks.cfg file(s), all new installs make use of them, regardless of what old boot disks are out there.

The first step to setting up your new kickstart content server is to put the install content of the three Fedora Core CDs in place on the FTP server.

1. Sit clown at your FTP server with the Fedora Core install CDs in hand.

2. Insert Fedora Core CD 1 and run the following commands:

   # mount /mnt/cdrom/
   # cp -af /mnt/cdrom/* /var/ftp/pub/
   # eject
   

3. Insert Fedora Core CD 2 and run these commands:

   # mount /mnt/cdrom/
   # cp -af /mnt/cdrom/Fedora/ /var/ftp/pub/
   # eject
   
   

   Insert Fedora Core CD 3 and run the same commands as with CD 2.

   Note

   Depending on your distro, you may not need to issue the mount commands. Some newer Linux distros have automounting services configured to do this for you.

4. Clean up all the TBL files in the FTP area:

   # find /var/ftp/pub/ -name "*.TBL" -exec rm {} \;
   

5. Make sure that your FTP daemon is on and configured:

   # /etc/init.d/vsftpd start ; chkconfig vsftpd on
   Starting vsftpd for vsftpd:                    [ OK ]
   #chkconfig --list vsftpd
   vsftpd     0:off  1:off   2:on  3:on  4:on 5:on 6:off
   

Congratulations, you've just set up a Fedora Core Linux Kickstart Provisioning Server! Setting up Red Hat distro kickstart servers such as RH 9 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux; these are identical to Fedora except that they use the directory name RedHat instead of Fedora.

This can also be done via username-protected FTP space or even via login-protected httpd/web share.