[fedora-virt] How can we pass kernel arguments(e.g:ks=hd:/dev/..) to a cdrom-based guest install?

[James Laska]

On Thu, 2010-02-04 at 10:38 +0000, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 10:45:37AM +0800, Li Ming wrote:
> > Hi,
> >     How can I pass the ks argument to a guest during install? I am 
> > writing an auto install python script,I can use virt-install --location 
> > install_tree --extra-args ks=...., but this will active the network, we 
> > want to mirror a true DVD install. If use virt-install --cdrom will 
> > solve this issue, we have a bad way to pass ks argument,uncompress the 
> > ISO,update the syslinux kernel args,then build the ISO again,but this 
> > will consume big resource,not a good way. Does someone have good 
> > suggestion for me to pass ks arg to kernel while using virt-install 
> > --cdrom in python script?
> 
> It is only posible to pass kernel boot args when booting off kernel/initrd
> direction (ie --location).  With --cdrom the BIOS is in charge. So if you
> need to pass args, then you'll have to modify your ISO image to include
> them directly.

We can certainly try modifying the ISO image itself, but we'd prefer
leaving the ISO image pristine if possible. 

Does the KVM autotest suite have any workarounds or example methods for
modifying the boot args when booting an ISO image?  Perhaps running
virt-viewer and _somehow_ issuing keyboard events to adjust the boot
args appropriately?  Or, can an ISO be mounted as a disk in the guest
and modified somehow using libguestfs?

Thanks,
James
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