It looks like I have some more experimenting to do. I like the USB idea more than bunches of burned CDs but it still leaves me with iso version issues that I was trying to avoid. Then again, once everything is in place I don't think that there will be frequent changes. The question becomes whether the livecd is worth the effort.
Thanks so much for your help,
Tim
-----Original Message----- From: cobbler-bounces@lists.fedorahosted.org [mailto:cobbler-bounces@lists.fedorahosted.org] On Behalf Of Michael DeHaan Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 9:32 AM To: cobbler mailing list Subject: Re: Cobbler LiveCD question
Flink, Timothy wrote:
Thanks, that helps a lot. I couldn't figure out if something wasn't working much less how to fix it. This would also explain why I had to modify the base.cfg in order to get the livecd to even build.
Hmm, yes, I need to move that page back to "Developer Docs" and add some clarifications. Thanks.
I've been using the iso generated by "cobbler buildiso" and that does work but I was hoping for an option that wasn't quite so static. Since I don't have access to the DHCP servers, I figured that the livecd would be a good option. The wiki page I found did mention that buildiso was an easier option, but that the livecd was more flexible (https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/CobblerLiveCd)
Out of curiosity, is the livecd an idea that has pretty much been depreciated and will be going away or might it come back if the issues with grubby are resolved?
I think the only real technical problem is the grubby problem, but building the live CD was a support problem for some users, and it's easier to just have buildiso for that reason. Another problem is the live CD sometimes didn't detect certain storage controllers that the normal installer environment would detect.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=457488
Would the livecd work with F8 and older livecd files from git or have there been other changes to cobbler which would prevent the livecd from working?
Shouldn't be, though I'd say F10 should work equally well.
FWIW, there's only 3 different things different when we invoke koan from the live CD:
if self.live_cd: cmd.append("--bad-image-okay") cmd.append("--boot-filesystem=/dev/sda1") cmd.append("--config-file=/tmp/boot/boot/grub/grub.conf")
It's the --bad-image-okay flag that is broken...
(For you, a cleaner route might be to just use "cobbler buildiso" and then convert the ISO into a USB image, to save from burning some discs. Things still remain somewhat static but they save from wasting CD's... also note that new images are only required when adding new profiles or system entries ... the kickstarts themselves are generated remotely from the cobbler server)
Thanks,
Tim
-----Original Message----- From: cobbler-bounces@lists.fedorahosted.org [mailto:cobbler-bounces@lists.fedorahosted.org] On Behalf Of Michael DeHaan Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 6:48 AM To: cobbler mailing list Subject: Re: Cobbler LiveCD question
Flink, Timothy wrote:
I'm new to cobbler and I am trying to get the LiveCD working as I am not able to change the dhcp server. I apologize if there are docs about this, but I wasn't able to find them.
What is procedure for starting an install using the LiveCD?
I have been able to build the iso and when I try booting from the iso in vmware, I get a login prompt for FC9. From there, I can log in as root/cobbler but have no idea what to do after that.
Thanks,
Tim _______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list cobbler@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
The live CD itself is not something the Wiki or manpages advertises anymore, if it does -- let me know, I need to edit them.
Ultimately I liked the live CD because it was effectively a PXE simulator, but it had two problems: (A) a newer version of grubby caused one of the less-well-documented flags we were using to stop working (B) it was too hard for many folks to build.
As a result, we made something much simpler, which builds much faster, and does not require livecd builds.
This is "cobbler buildiso" (see "cobbler buildiso --help" for details).
It covers /most/ functionality of the live CD and effectively presents the same menu you'd get when PXE'ing without a MAC address in Cobbler -- the cobbler boot menu.
(FWIW, with the livecd, it's probably done ... root/cobbler should get you a login, and "reboot" is probably missing at the end of the template -- that all being said, the problems with grubby mean that on /most/ platforms, it doesn't work anymore, and folks should just use "cobbler buildiso" -- the only real functionality lost is being able to sign a system to boot to a specific profile, as with PXE -- though it is possible to include system records in the PXE menus using the buildiso command).
Hope that helps?
--Michael
cobbler mailing list cobbler@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler _______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list cobbler@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
_______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list cobbler@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler