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We have been looking to setup a USB disk (stick) for uniformly configuring our servers. (and when I say "we" I mean my colleague figured it out with my occasional help)

We would like to explicitly list the RPMs we want.

So far:

  • We managed to make the stick bootable
  • We managed to configure grub to point at the kickstart file
  • We placed a ISO (of the distro or one we created) containing the RPMs on the stick

I would like to avoid the step of creating this ISO image and just drop RPMs into a directory on the USB stick

I remember working with kickstart many years ago (probably with floppy) and am pretty sure that this was possible.

EDIT

Maybe our problem is elsewhere ... we are getting the following screen, where it is specifically looking for an ISO image (re my original question - wanting to kickstart without an ISO image)

Here is a screen-shot of it:

enter image description here

Pierre.Vriens
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nhed
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2 Answers2

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The kickstart can install packages from any configured repository. Simply mount the USB key at a known location before the actual install and point the repo information to the appropriate directory (and don't forget to use createrepo).

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
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  • @Ignacio I imagine that the system being bootstrapped has no OS present to mount on. – JeffG Mar 22 '11 at 20:06
  • @JeffG: The installer has an OS. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 22 '11 at 20:08
  • We are specifying the path to the kickstart file in terms of an absolute device path ... something in the spirit of `ks=hd:sda1:/ks.cfg` ... how would I mount (from %pre rule in kickstart?) – nhed Mar 22 '11 at 20:11
  • @nhed: Yes, that would be the appropriate place. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 22 '11 at 20:13
  • @Ignacio, thanks - but I am still unclear about 2 things: (1) why should I mount if it is mounted already (ks file: install => --partiton & --dir) (2) the what the directory tree should look like in said directory ... If you have dome this before can you paste an example? Thanks – nhed Mar 23 '11 at 02:00
  • If it's already mounted then it's already mounted and Bob's your uncle. Run `createrepo` against the directory containing your RPMs, and then point the repo information to that directory. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 23 '11 at 02:54
  • @Ignacio see my edit above ... It just keep looking for ISO images ... is it possible to have just the RPMs in a directory? if so can you provide an example – nhed Mar 23 '11 at 23:06
  • That's how hard drive installs work. Point the installer at the partition that contains the CentOS ISO. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 23 '11 at 23:09
  • So the answer to my question above should have been "it cant be done, you need the ISO" – nhed Mar 23 '11 at 23:33
  • Sure. But you don't need to have the RPMs in the ISO. All you need is the install ISO, and then you can have the RPMs in a repository on the key. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 23 '11 at 23:42
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You may have better luck burning the ISO onto a DVD.

  1. loopback mount your DVD ISO image
  2. copy your kickstart file to the root of the image
  3. edit isolinux/isolinux.cfg and append ks=FILENAME.ks to the kernel line
  4. unmount the ISO image and burn the disk.
JeffG
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