2.1AS kickstart - manual network config CD/DVD install

[Andrew Rechenberg Lists]

Good day,

I've been doing some research on prompting for manual network settings
in the %pre section of a kickstart file and it appears that anaconda
isn't behaving as some people think that it should.

According to a couple of threads (I believe on) the kickstart-list
and/or the anaconda-devel-list, the ks.cfg file is supposed to be
re-read after the %pre section script is executed.  On a RHEL2.1ASU5
install, this re-read doesn't seem to be happening.

In my ks.cfg I have "network --bootproto dhcp --device eth0" and then in
the %pre section I prompt for network configuration information and then
use sed to change the "network" line, redirect the output to a temporary
file and then copy this temp file back to /tmp/ks.cfg.

Here are some of the threads I've checked out:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/kickstart-list/2004-March/msg00075.html
http://www.redhat.com/archives/anaconda-devel-list/2003-June/msg00149.ht
ml (this thread indicates ks.cfg is re-read)

So, my question is: Is ks.cfg re-read after the %pre section?  What
could be my problem if it is?

I would like to get the network configuration in the %pre section so the
installer can answer the questions and then move on to the next install.

Thanks for your help,
Andy.

Regards,
Andrew Rechenberg
Infrastructure Team, Sherman Financial Group
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[Patrick Devine]

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005, Andrew Rechenberg Lists wrote:
> According to a couple of threads (I believe on) the kickstart-list
> and/or the anaconda-devel-list, the ks.cfg file is supposed to be
> re-read after the %pre section script is executed.  On a RHEL2.1ASU5
> install, this re-read doesn't seem to be happening.

Take a look at setInstallData() in kickstart.py.  self.readKickstart() 
gets called twice, once before %pre and once after (or at least it does so 
in RHEL 3).
> In my ks.cfg I have "network --bootproto dhcp --device eth0" and then in
> the %pre section I prompt for network configuration information and then
> use sed to change the "network" line, redirect the output to a temporary
> file and then copy this temp file back to /tmp/ks.cfg.

Why not take the network setting out of your kickstart file and have 
anaconda prompt for it with it's own network screen?

--Patrick.