redhat "rescue mode"?

Mann, Owen Owen.Mann at interactivedata.com
Thu Dec 15 18:18:32 UTC 2011


-----Original Message-----
From: cobbler-bounces at lists.fedorahosted.org [mailto:cobbler-bounces at lists.fedorahosted.org] On Behalf Of David Lee
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 12:53 PM
To: cobbler mailing list
Subject: Re: redhat "rescue mode"?

Jörgen Maas wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Mann, Owen 
> <Owen.Mann at interactivedata.com> wrote:
>> My 2cents: I never had a problem with switching profiles. But I thought - and correct me if I'm wrong - rescue-mode for RHEL is just a matter of adding "rescue" to the " Kernel Options " field.
>>
> 
> You are right.
> 

If that is right, then it is only partially right.  It is sometimes (including our site) not right.

Our cobbler set-up (2.0.11) has a couple of distros and a couple of profiles.  In normal operation we explicitly add each and every system, and the network install goes straight through, without prompting for anything anywhere.  That's good for normal re-install operations.  But not for rescue!

Putting "rescue" in the "Kernel Options" field doesn't seem to have any effect at all: it re-installs.  Ouch!  I've even tried (as a test) going to "/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/" and editing the file corresponding to the MAC address, changing "prompt 0" to "prompt 1", replacing most of "append initrd=..." so it only has the "initrd" clause and a "rescue". 
No... it still boots straight through (i.e. installs) and doesn't go to rescue and doesn't give any prompts.

I see that the "kickstarts" directory contains a "pxerescue.ks".  That looks promising.  But if it is part of the answer, what are the missing parts of the answer?  And where is the documentation that fully describes the complete answer?

Could those voting against the proposed "--rescue-mode=true" provide a working, and tested, recipe of the steps to achieve this, please?

Please, please, can we think "beginner"; think "simple"; think "documentation".

Thanks.


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Hmm, this has always worked for me, in Cobbler 1.6.6 and 2.2.1.
Rescue mode is described here:
RHEL4: http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/4/html/Installation_Guides/rhel-ig-x8664-multi-en-4/ap-bootopts.html
RHEL5: http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html/Installation_Guide/s1-rescuemode-boot.html
RHEL6: http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installation_Guide/ap-rescuemode.html#s1-rescuemode-boot

Question: Are you using the Python tftp server, or the traditional one? Can you verify (via /proc/cmdline) that the kernel _is_ getting the "rescue" option?
I'm not against your recommendation; but this method is both simple and documented.



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