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I am using Cobbler to install SLES 11 SP2 and it has been running fine all the while. Recently I modified the kickstart file by changing the size of the root partition from 18GB to 36GB. To my surprise the modification did not take place - Cobbler created a root partition with the size of 18GB. I tried removing the profile, renaming it, but no success.

I am completely stump as to where Cobbler is getting the value 18GB from. Is there some kind of cache that is keeping the old kickstart file somewhere and I need to clear that up first?

The part where I did the modification:

<partition>
  <create config:type="boolean">true</create>
  <crypt_fs config:type="boolean">false</crypt_fs>
  <filesystem config:type="symbol">ext3</filesystem>
  <format config:type="boolean">true</format>
  <fstopt>acl,user_xattr</fstopt>
  <loop_fs config:type="boolean">false</loop_fs>
  <lv_name>lvroot</lv_name>
  <mount>/</mount>
  <mountby config:type="symbol">device</mountby>
  <partition_id config:type="integer">131</partition_id>
  <raid_options/>
  <resize config:type="boolean">false</resize>
  <size>36GB</size>
</partition>
030
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gidot
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2 Answers2

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I know this is a basic thing, but did you cobbler sync after making your changes? You can do this via GUI or CLI.

Otherwise, they may not have taken effect.

ewwhite
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  • I did. After so many times trying I rebooted the server. Oh well. – gidot Apr 21 '15 at 13:52
  • My kickstart file is accessed via http, and it is definitely accessible. Anyway I did try copying the kickstart file into /var/lib/cobbler/kickstarts, and run cobbler system getks --name=test, and all was good. It's the right kickstart file, the right profile, the right values. – gidot Apr 21 '15 at 14:02
  • @gidot Did `cobbler sync` solve the issue? – 030 Apr 21 '15 at 16:26
  • No, it didn't. Sorry, I should've been clearer. – gidot Apr 21 '15 at 16:37
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TL; DR: I was able to solve a similar problem by changing the MAC address of the primary NIC used for PXE boot on the virtual host being provisioned. The virtual host being provisioned is running as a guest of KVM/QEMU and I was installing CentOS 7.5.

Full story: I had an erroneous ignoredisk command in my Kickstart file on line 22, which caused the provisioning process to halt with an appropriate error message on the console of the VM. I deleted that line from the Kickstart, saved it, ran cobbler sync, and started the VM again. Anaconda reported the same exact error, even though the kickstart file had clearly changed. First, I verified that the Cobbler server was providing the correct, updated kickstart file:

  • Ran cobbler system report --name=my-host-name and verified the path to the Kickstart file template (not intentionally using any templating features)
  • Ran curl "http://my-cobbler-host/cblr/svc/op/ks/system/my-host-name.ks" and verified that the erroneous line has been removed from the rendered Kickstart

I then started troubleshooting the virtual host:

  • Deleted the virtual disk and created a new one in case Anaconda had somehow cached the Kickstart file on the unformatted disk (highly unlikely, but grasping at straws)
  • Deleted the NIC and added a new one with a different MAC address. The provisioning proceeded smoothly after that.

The old Kickstart file must have been cached somewhere and associated with the MAC address of the host being provisioned. It doesn't appear to have been cached on the Cobbler server, but I don't know where else it could be cached.

Craig Finch
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