A question about cobbler/codes.py and MS Windows support?
by Zack Perry
Was browsing the cobbler codes to become more familiar with the software. Looking at cobbler/codes.py, I spotted the following:
43 VALID_OS_VERSIONS = {
44 "redhat" : [ "rhel3", "rhel4", "rhel5", "rhel6", "fedora14", "fedora15", "fedora16", "fedora17", "fedora18", "rawhide", "generic24", "generic26", "virtio26", "other" ],
45 "suse" : [ "sles9", "sles10", "sles11", "opensuse11.2", "opensuse11.3", "opensuse11.4", "opensuse12.1", "opensuse12.2", "generic24", "generic26", "virtio26", "other" ],
46 "debian" : [ "lenny", "squeeze", "stable", "testing", "unstable", "generic24", "generic26", "other" ],
47 "ubuntu" : [ "hardy", "lucid", "maverick", "natty", "precise", "quantal" ],
48 "generic" : [ "generic24", "generic26", "other" ],
49 "windows" : [ "winxp", "win2k", "win2k3", "vista", "other" ],
50 "unix" : [ "solaris9", "solaris10", "other" ],
51 "vmware" : [ "esx4", "esxi4", "esxi5" ],
52 "freebsd" : [ "7.3", "7.4", "8.1", "8.2", "8.3", "9.0", "9.1" ],
53 "other" : [ "msdos", "netware4", "netware5", "netware6", "generic", "other" ]
54 }
That got me curious. M$ Windows! Among the listed, how well cobbler supports them? I have done some digging into both the current and old documentation but couldn't find much instructions. Are these elements in the dictionary and lists TODOs or real? ;-)
Seriously, is there a place where I can find the status of support of each listed OS in the above dictionary? My own limited experience can only confirm that RHEL 6, Fedora 17, precise and quantal do work, with the last two demanding more work to use the current version 2.4.0, among other minor annoyances that I hope to be able to work on soon (under water due to work load again :-(
I would appreciate a pointer. So far, the best I could find is from the prolific Jörgen Maas's posts, e.g. http://www.mail-archive.com/cobbler@lists.fedorahosted.org/msg07265.html
Regards,
-- Zack
11 years, 6 months
Help - Build-ISO cannot find kickstart
by Dan White
I am in an environment where I cannot control DHCP, so I have gone to using Cobbler buildISO's to boot new installs.
Today, for no reason I can locate, the process stops on a screen saying it cannot load the kickstart file.
The given URL is valid and contains a proper, cobbler-generated kickstart.
I checked firewalls, restarted apache, restarted cobblerd, did a "cobbler sync" and still the same roadblock.
What am I missing, please ?
This worked yesterday, but not today.
Cobbler 2.2.3
Red Hat Enterprise Server release 5.8 (x86_64)
Kernel 2.6.18-308.20.1.el5
“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
Bill Waterson (Calvin & Hobbes)
11 years, 6 months
Setting PXE interface to eth0
by Asher Newcomer
Hi All,
I have a machine with multiple nics, and the nic that is being used to boot
from pxe ends up getting set as eth2 by Ubuntu 12.04 after install.
This causes some problems for mac address mappings and some other
assumptions I've made. Is there a simple way to set the pxe interface to
eth0 by default? I'm unfortunately using preseed files instead of
kickstarts to drive the installer, but I suppose I could look to change
that.
Thanks!
Asher
11 years, 6 months
Project Status and Direction
by James Cammarata
Hey all, just wanted to send out a quick update on the project status.
The release24 branch has been receiving patches, and is alpha quality.
I'm looking for more users to check it out and give it a test. One of
the biggest holdups to this release is the documentation. The 2.2.3
manual will need to be forked and updated with all of the new features
in 2.4.0, such as:
* Dynamic settings - no more needing to restart cobblerd when changing settings.
* Better debian/ubuntu support (better preseed, more snippet support, etc.)
* Support for bonded bridge interfaces (useful for virtual hosts)
* OpenVZ support as a virtualization type
* Web GUI improvements
* Alpha support for MySQL as an alternate storage backend
And probably a few more that I'm forgetting. So, if you're familiar
with any of these features, take a look at the docs repo - any help
updating the docs would be appreciated. Right now, a lot of the pages
content was essentially just copied from the wiki, so there is a lot
of cleanup left to do. Once the manual is forked, we're going to have
to do that in two places, so it'll be easier to tackle now before we
fork it.
There are two primary goals on my road map right now:
1. Work towards adding support for IaaS platforms like OpenStack,
Eucalyptus, etc.
2. Improve unit testing and continuous integration testing with Jenkins.
Both of these goals require some dedicated hardware, so to help fund
those goals I have created an Indiegogo campaign:
http://www.indiegogo.com/cobbler24
This will be the only time I mention this on the mailing list, but I
will put it up on the project home page and mention it via twitter. So
any help in getting the word out will of course be greatly
appreciated.
Overall, I think the project has been moving in a positive direction,
and the last 6 months have flown by since taking over as maintainer.
Any comments or other feedback are always welcome. Thanks!
11 years, 6 months
Re: [cobbler] RFC: adding a cobbler debmirror.template?
by Zack Perry
[...]
> > While we are on the subject of netboot issue, I also
> > spotted something odd. AFAIK, the ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64.iso
> > and ubuntu-12.10-server-amd64.iso do not provide working
> > netboot images for PXE network install. Please see my test
> > report in this regard:
> >
> > http://www.mail-archive.com/cobbler@lists.fedorahosted.org/msg08210.html
>
> The "alternate" install image has been dropped from 12.10.
> There's a lengthy thread on ubuntu-devel@ if you want to see the
> reasons behind it.
Thanks. I am aware of the discussion. That's why I have been using
lubuntu-12.10-alternate-x86_64.iso (Lubuntu, not Ubuntu :-).
> Just use the mini-iso, mirror 'main' & main/debian-installer locally
> or install everything from the proper archive.
What I have been trying to do is to simplify the process. With all RH
systems, I don't need to make a distinction between a mini-iso or
a regular iso. A single (or a couple of) isos allow me to do both
server and desktop install, using a burned DVD or PXE network install.
The content is also sufficient for me to create a basis of a local
mirror before updating with rsync.
Would it be nice to have such a simplicity with Ubuntu?
I have used lubuntu alternate iso to PXE network
install both server and desktop. But lubuntu iso maintainer
treats the debian-installer part differently, so I can't use said iso
to install the meta package lubuntu-desktop.
> The server iso should still work for netbooting, though, just need
> to preseed the package set/tasks.
Yes. At any rate, I filed a bug on launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lubuntu-meta/+bug/1085336
Regards,
-- Zack
11 years, 6 months
Re: [cobbler] RFC: adding a cobbler debmirror.template?
by Zack Perry
[...]
> >> Care to explain a bit more? AFAICT the netboot
> >> images are exactly where they used to be.
> >
> > Thanks. I need to correct myself a bit.
> >
> > Yes. netbook images are available at for example for
> > 12.10-x86_64 at:
> >
> > http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/installer-amd64/curre...
> >
> > or the daily build area.
> >
> > The hierarchy, however, differs from what you may get
> > from an iso image. IMO Red Hat systems are more consistent
> > in this regard.
>
> Ah, got it.
While we are on the subject of netboot issue, I also spotted something
odd. AFAIK, the ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64.iso and
ubuntu-12.10-server-amd64.iso do not provide working netboot images
for PXE network install. Please see my test report in this regard:
http://www.mail-archive.com/cobbler@lists.fedorahosted.org/msg08210.html
As a result of my digging around, I found
lubuntu-12.10-alternate-amd64.iso (never tried it before). But the
iso IMHO has a funny aspect to it. Lets take a look of the
above iso's content, loop mounted on /mnt:
[root@cobbler quantal]# pwd
/mnt/dists/quantal
[root@cobbler quantal]# ls -lR
.:
total 17
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 main
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 multiverse
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 8436 Oct 17 00:26 Release
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 198 Oct 17 00:26 Release.gpg
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 restricted
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 universe
./main:
total 10
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-amd64
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-i386
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 debian-installer
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 dist-upgrader
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 source
[...]
./main/debian-installer:
total 2
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-amd64
./main/debian-installer/binary-amd64:
total 30
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 30259 Oct 17 00:26 Packages.gz
[...]
./universe:
total 8
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-amd64
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-i386
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 debian-installer
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 source
./universe/binary-amd64:
total 48
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 48538 Oct 17 00:26 Packages.gz
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 101 Oct 17 00:26 Release
[...]
./universe/debian-installer:
total 2
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-amd64
./universe/debian-installer/binary-amd64:
total 1
-r--r--r-- 8 root root 20 Oct 17 00:26 Packages.gz
[...]
Note that the Packages.gz in universe/debian-installer/binary-amd64
has no content, but its counterpart in universe/binary-amd64 does.
I have tried to use the iso burned to a CD to do an install. The
Lubunbun desktop did get installed, even without an Internet
connection (I pulled the wire ;-)
But up to now, if I try to do a PXE network install, the only way
that I can get a desktop installed is to add a locally mirrored
repository with a d-i apt-setup/local0/repository ... preseed
debconf-set-selections command.
I even tried to replace the Packages.gz in
universe/debian-installer/binary-amd64
with the result of dpkg-scanpackages, gzipped, but the graphical
login is still missing after the install.
Regards,
-- Zack
11 years, 6 months
