Using "cobbler import" on LiveCDs?

[Locane]

Hello everyone - I'm trying to find resources on how to have Cobbler
correctly import a LiveCD.  Does anyone have any links I can look at?  Does
Cobbler even support this?

I've tried manually editing the PXE menu with a known-good-working
configuration from an old pxe server, and a test system just hangs at
blinking cursor at the menu when I attempt to load it.

Thanks in advance!

[Nishanth Aravamudan]

On 23.09.2015 [10:21:31 -0700], Locane wrote:
>  Hello everyone - I'm trying to find resources on how to have
> Cobbler
>  correctly import a LiveCD.  Does anyone have any links I can look at?  Does
>  Cobbler even support this?
>  
>  I've tried manually editing the PXE menu with a known-good-working
>  configuration from an old pxe server, and a test system just hangs at
>  blinking cursor at the menu when I attempt to load it. 
I don't think Cobbler is generally intended to host LiveCDs over the
network -- is that something that is supported by your OS? Cobbler is
for installation primarily.

-Nish

[Locane]

Yes, absolutely.  I have a current legacy PXE server running on (shudder)
CentOS 4, and it works great for loading the LiveCD image.  Below is the
PXE menu config entry associated with it that works on the old server:

label livecd
  menu label ^LiveCD
    KERNEL devops/livecd/vmlinuz
        APPEND rootflags=loop initrd=devops/livecd/initrd.img
root=live:/boot.iso rootfstype=auto ro liveimg quiet nodiskmount nolvmmount
   rhgb vga=791 nomodeset rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM
ONERROR LOCALBOOT 0

It is a CentOS 7 LiveCD, built using Lorax and converted with
livecd-to-pxe-boot from LiveCD Tools (also a Fedora thing).

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Nishanth Aravamudan <
nacc(a)linux.vnet.ibm.com&gt; wrote:

>  On 23.09.2015 [10:21:31 -0700], Locane wrote:
>  > Hello everyone - I'm trying to find resources on how to have Cobbler
>  > correctly import a LiveCD.  Does anyone have any links I can look at?
>  Does
>  > Cobbler even support this?
>  >
>  > I've tried manually editing the PXE menu with a known-good-working
>  > configuration from an old pxe server, and a test system just hangs at
>  > blinking cursor at the menu when I attempt to load it.
>
>  I don't think Cobbler is generally intended to host LiveCDs over the
>  network -- is that something that is supported by your OS? Cobbler is
>  for installation primarily.
>
>  -Nish
>
>

[Nishanth Aravamudan]

On 23.09.2015 [10:46:03 -0700], Locane wrote:
>  Yes, absolutely.  I have a current legacy PXE server running on
> (shudder)
>  CentOS 4, and it works great for loading the LiveCD image.  Below is the
>  PXE menu config entry associated with it that works on the old server:
>  
>  label livecd
>    menu label ^LiveCD
>      KERNEL devops/livecd/vmlinuz
>          APPEND rootflags=loop initrd=devops/livecd/initrd.img
>  root=live:/boot.iso rootfstype=auto ro liveimg quiet nodiskmount nolvmmount
>     rhgb vga=791 nomodeset rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM
>  ONERROR LOCALBOOT 0
>  
>  It is a CentOS 7 LiveCD, built using Lorax and converted with
>  livecd-to-pxe-boot from LiveCD Tools (also a Fedora thing). 
Have you tried copying the vmlinuz and initrd.img to the Cobbler
server's disk and running a `cobbler distro add` on it? `cobbler import`
is for importing full DVDs of OS distributions.

-Nish

[Locane]

Nishanth - as a Cobbler newbie, I didn't know about this.  Thanks!

It worked after I tweaked it - I had to add the kernel parameter
"root=live:/boot.iso" to the PXE config line, where "boot.iso" is the
name
of the original ISO that livemedia-creator made before getting PXE
converted.

For others finding this on the internets, I had to make a profile called
"livecd" with the distro, and then I had to add the kernel option to the
profile with the following command:

cobbler profile edit --name livecd --kopts="root=live:/boot.iso"

It works! :D  Thanks all!

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Nishanth Aravamudan <
nacc(a)linux.vnet.ibm.com&gt; wrote:

>  On 23.09.2015 [10:46:03 -0700], Locane wrote:
>  > Yes, absolutely.  I have a current legacy PXE server running on (shudder)
>  > CentOS 4, and it works great for loading the LiveCD image.  Below is the
>  > PXE menu config entry associated with it that works on the old server:
>  >
>  > label livecd
>  >   menu label ^LiveCD
>  >     KERNEL devops/livecd/vmlinuz
>  >         APPEND rootflags=loop initrd=devops/livecd/initrd.img
>  > root=live:/boot.iso rootfstype=auto ro liveimg quiet nodiskmount
>  nolvmmount
>  >    rhgb vga=791 nomodeset rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM
>  > ONERROR LOCALBOOT 0
>  >
>  > It is a CentOS 7 LiveCD, built using Lorax and converted with
>  > livecd-to-pxe-boot from LiveCD Tools (also a Fedora thing).
>
>  Have you tried copying the vmlinuz and initrd.img to the Cobbler
>  server's disk and running a `cobbler distro add` on it? `cobbler import`
>  is for importing full DVDs of OS distributions.
>
>  -Nish
>
>

[Scot Floess]

All, 

This is awesome... I've been trying to get CentOS/RHEL/Fedora Atomic installed - had
no luck. I then opted to try to install just a normal Live CD (CentOS 6.0, 6.7 and 7.0)
with no luck whatsoever. I thought I followed the directions on the cobbler site - but it
still failed and I needed a break as it was a long drawn out no-go scenario ;) 

Appears based upon what I see here that my kernel ops may have been woefully wrong :( 

Has anyone had any luck with Atomic? 

----- Original Message -----

>  From: "Locane" <locane(a)gmail.com&gt;
>  To: "Nishanth Aravamudan" <nacc(a)linux.vnet.ibm.com&gt;
>  Cc: cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 1:46:03 PM
>  Subject: Re: [cobbler] Using "cobbler import" on LiveCDs? 
>  Yes, absolutely. I have a current legacy PXE server running on
> (shudder)
>  CentOS 4, and it works great for loading the LiveCD image. Below is the PXE
>  menu config entry associated with it that works on the old server: 
>  label livecd
>  menu label ^LiveCD
>  KERNEL devops/livecd/vmlinuz
>  APPEND rootflags=loop initrd=devops/livecd/initrd.img root=live:/boot.iso
>  rootfstype=auto ro liveimg quiet nodiskmount nolvmmount rhgb vga=791
>  nomodeset rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM
>  ONERROR LOCALBOOT 0 
>  It is a CentOS 7 LiveCD, built using Lorax and converted with
>  livecd-to-pxe-boot from LiveCD Tools (also a Fedora thing). 
>  On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Nishanth Aravamudan <
>  nacc(a)linux.vnet.ibm.com > wrote: 
>  > On 23.09.2015 [10:21:31 -0700], Locane wrote:
>  
>  > > Hello everyone - I'm trying to find resources on how to have Cobbler
>  
>  > > correctly import a LiveCD. Does anyone have any links I can look at? Does
>  
>  > > Cobbler even support this?
>  
>  > >
>  
>  > > I've tried manually editing the PXE menu with a known-good-working
>  
>  > > configuration from an old pxe server, and a test system just hangs at
>  
>  > > blinking cursor at the menu when I attempt to load it.
>   
>  > I don't think Cobbler is generally intended to host LiveCDs
> over the
>  
>  > network -- is that something that is supported by your OS? Cobbler is
>  
>  > for installation primarily.
>   
>  > -Nish
>   
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