[cobbler] Can deploy Ubuntu using a kickstart file rather than a preseed?

Nishanth Aravamudan nacc at linux.vnet.ibm.com
Thu Sep 25 21:28:43 UTC 2014


On 25.09.2014 [21:11:49 +0000], Will Dennis wrote:
> Hi Nish,
> 
> No, specifying a KS file instead of a preseed file in the "Kickstart"
> drop (using cobbler-web here...) makes the install blow up as I
> described in my earlier post. I suspect that a distribution of breed
> "ubuntu" makes Cobbler want to use a preseed ("d-i") format file
> instead of a kickstart, since that is the "native" answer file format
> for that distro type...

Hrm, but the preseed or kickstart file were served correctly. And I
assume that means the template & template-completion worked too.
Ubuntu's installer barfed, which doesn't necessarily have to do with
Cobbler.

You can do all of this manually using a file and serving it over the
network to see if it works, right?

-Nish

> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nishanth Aravamudan [mailto:nacc at linux.vnet.ibm.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2014 3:53 PM
> To: Will Dennis
> Cc: cobbler mailing list
> Subject: Re: [cobbler] Can deploy Ubuntu using a kickstart file rather than a preseed?
> 
> On 25.09.2014 [19:40:12 +0000], Will Dennis wrote:
> > Thanks, Alastair. Guess I'll be learning Debian Installer syntax then
> > ;)
> 
> Yeah, I'd recommend d-i as the default, but it's painful and preseed is not well-documented (especially the hidden options/values to make for a NQA (no questions asked) install).
> > 
> > Would be cool in the future if Cobbler could support either d-i or 
> > kickstart for breed "ubuntu", since there is support now, and I'd 
> > wager most Cobbler users are more familiar with kickstart...
> 
> I don't think it's worth doing until it's fully supported by Ubuntu.
> 
> But, I don't see why you can't just have your profile use a kickstart and it wouldn't just work? I don't believe that Cobbler really knows about the syntax of the file used to netboot, it just treats it as a template, etc. I might be wrong, though.
> 
> That is, for your system, just point it's kickstart entry to a kickstart file instead of a preseed. Does that work?
> 
> -Nish
> 



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