On 07/06/2009 03:42 PM, Paul Company wrote:
Please don't shout :)
    
Sorry for shouting.
I'm just frustrated. Love cobbler, but this issue is just driving me nuts. ;-0

  
You'll be up in running quicker than you can reply to this email series :)
    
It's not a matter of getting things working - I can get things working
with local distros, no problem.
This issue is I'm trying to get this to work from a remote location
that contains distros.
Having everything local on my cobbler server is not at option at this point.

  
We use import in that way daily here to pull in trees from NFS.
    

So I'm assuming you can do the same using HTTP?
  

Absolutely.

Anaconda (kickstart) supports network installs over http, nfs, or ftp... import will handle all of these,
but if it's giving trouble, distro add is basically just the same thing.

You still need kernels on the filesystem in order to PXE.   Cobbler will copy them into the right locations.

-
  
The kernels and initrds must be local so they can be PXE booted.  The
trees do not have to be.
    

Ah! Ha! (ok I said I wouldn't shout, but I can still get excited)

So you don't consider kernel and initrd as part of a Distribution?
  


They are the most important part of the distribution.  The tree, however, is only loosely associated.

if you do a cobbler import, it will store a --ksmeta variable called "tree" that will point to a URL and that will be used
in the kickstart templating, but it can exist /anywhere/.

(Import is a command that (when run normally, i.e. not --available-as) helps folks make sure their content is web accessible
nd automatically sets up those variables.)


So I can not setup a cobbler server and have kernels and initrds remote?
Correct?

  

You at minimum need them somewhere on a filesystem.     That can be remote, i.e. NFS is fine, or it could be the trees are remote
and you just copied the installer kernel/initrds to /srv or /opt or wherever.


  
The command works, it's just hard to tell /what/ about that isn't working for you.
    

I think it's that I don't have the kernel and initrd local.
I was assuming --available-as= would deal with finding their location.

I guess my final question would be:
What absolutely needs to reside locally on the cobbler server, and
what can be remote?
  

Nothing needs to be local.

Kernels and initrds must be on a mounted filesystem.

Trees can be local or remote (if remote, ftp, nfs, or http access is required).

Remember import is nothing more than a macro around "cobbler distro add" and "cobbler profile add" and sometimes a little bit of copying.
It is optional, so if you think you are smarter than it or know better, it's totally fine to not use it.

--Michael