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

Will Dennis wdennis at nec-labs.com
Fri Sep 26 21:59:30 UTC 2014


Great to hear, Alan! I went ahead and opened an issue (feature request) on the cobbler GitHub.

Best,
Will

-----Original Message-----
From: cobbler-bounces at lists.fedorahosted.org [mailto:cobbler-bounces at lists.fedorahosted.org] On Behalf Of Alan Evangelista
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 3:51 PM
To: cobbler at lists.fedorahosted.org
Subject: Re: [cobbler] Can deploy Ubuntu using a kickstart file rather than a preseed?

On 09/26/2014 01:29 PM, Will Dennis wrote:
> Hi Nish,
>
> Yes, you are correct, the install does blow up in the Ubuntu installer, but it's because the installer is looking for a preseed file... This is driven by the kernel append options that Cobbler is providing. I did a Wireshark packet capture of the PXE netboot process, and the interesting bit is the boot menu that Cobbler send to the client:
>
> =====
> ..tsize.2026.blksize.1380.........
> DEFAULT menu
> PROMPT 0
> MENU TITLE Cobbler | http://www.cobblerd.org/ TIMEOUT 200 TOTALTIMEOUT 
> 6000 ONTIMEOUT local
>
> LABEL local
>          MENU LABEL (local)
>          MENU DEFAULT
>          LOCALBOOT -1
>
>    [...redacted...]
>
> LABEL ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64
>          kernel /images/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64/linux
>          MENU LABEL ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64
>          append initrd=/images/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64/initrd.gz ksdevice=bootif lang=  ks=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64 text  auto-install/enable=true priority=critical url=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64 hostname=ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x8664 domain=local.lan suite=trusty
>          ipappend 2
>
> LABEL ubuntu1404svr-x86_64
>          kernel /images/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64/linux
>          MENU LABEL ubuntu1404svr-x86_64
>          append initrd=/images/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64/initrd.gz ksdevice=bootif lang=  text  auto-install/enable=true priority=critical url=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64 hostname=ubuntu1404svr-x8664 domain=local.lan suite=trusty
>          ipappend 2
>
>
>
> MENU end
> ....
> =====
>
> The "ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64" option is the one I'm using. For comparison, the " ubuntu1404svr-x86_64" one is the "plain vanilla" one that Cobbler made when I imported the ISO. On the "ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64" one I added the following to the "Kernel Options" field in cobbler-web:
> ks=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x8
> 6_64
>
> As you can see, it has inserted this in the append line, but kept the rest of the line beginning with " text  auto-install/enable=true [...]", which is what makes the installer look for a preseed file, and which is handing it the kickstart file in the " url=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64" bit of the append line. Since that is not a valid Debian preseed format file, the installer rightly chokes on it, and blows up with the "installer failed to process the preconfiguration file" message.
>
> So as a test, I PXE-booted the client machine again, selected the "ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64" menu option from the Cobbler menu, hit [Tab] to edit the line, and removed the following from the append line:
> text  auto-install/enable=true priority=critical 
> url=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x
> 86_64 hostname=ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x8664 domain=local.lan 
> suite=trusty
>
> Then hit Enter, and the installer took off and processed the kickstart file correctly (as it does when I use my USB key with the kickstart on it.) Interestingly enough, it names the node's hostname "kickseed" :) It did format and partition the disk correctly as per the kickstart directives, etc.
>
> So, again, I believe the profile breed type of "ubuntu" is driving the way that Cobbler forms the append line. (Can Jörgen or someone else who knows the code confirm?)   What I'd like to see is an option to tell Cobbler to use kickstart instead of preseed for Ubuntu nodes, and form the append line correctly for that option... (If only I could code to the level of Cobbler, I'd jump in and make a patch!)
>

Hi, Will, I am a Cobbler developer. Thank you for the feedback.

Yes, Cobbler assumes that Debian installations use preseed and automatically adds some d-i-specific kernel options to installation kernel command line. This seems easy to fix and I can do it if Jörgen agrees in adding kickstart support in Ubuntu installations.


Regards,
Alan Evangelista

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