this is the options koan provides to libvirt:

- ['virt-install', '--connect', 'qemu:///system', '--name', 'debian', '--ram', '1024', '--vcpus', '1', '--autostart', '--vnc', '--virt-type', 'qemu', '--machine', 'pc', '--hvm', '--extra-args=ksdevice=link lang=en_US url=http://<server address>/cblr/svc/op/ks/system/debian text auto-install/enable=true priority=critical ', '--location', 'http://<server address/cblr/links/debian-wheezy-net-x86_64/', '--arch', 'x86_64', '--os-variant', 'generic26', '--disk', 'path=/dev/mapper/default-debian--disk0,size=30,format=raw', '--network', 'bridge=guests', '--wait', '0', '--noautoconsole']

when I mount the debian install CD (i've tried both "CD-1" and the netinst CD) to a directory and point virt-install to that directory I get the same result. In this case using "--location /mnt/cdrom"

However, if i use "--cdrom /path/to/iso" directly it works fine. So virt-install works with --cdrom but not with --location <url to cdrom contents>

If i try with this option --location http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/main/installer-amd64/  (that i got from the virt-install man page) it works.  i noticed that that directory structure looks different than what cobbler installs to http://<server address/cblr/links/debian-wheezy-net-x86_64/

So i'm thinking that for virt-install plus debian, there is install from CDROM and there is install directly from a web server. but they are not the same directories / files

I noticed that i can have the VM boot to the pxe menu and start a debian install that way. However, the installer looks for a cdrom and fails if it doesn't find it. Defeating the purpose of network install...

TL;DR, I'm trying to get cobbler to install Debian and failing. has anybody gotten this to work? any gotchas or tips?