Profile Function without system Entry

[Mackell, Thomas O]

I have a small problem.
Our current Cobbler setup works fine, with the exception of one item.
With some of our servers, we have to use the buildiso to create a bootable disk.
That's works fine, with the exception of the system profile not being used by the
booting system.
It would appear that only the distro "profile"  defined  kickstart file is 
being used.
I noticed that the network devices do not get defined. Which make sense as there is no
network devices in the profile, only the system profile has the devices.
The snippet returns nothing all blanks.

My setup has the high level profile with the kickstart file having the filesystems,
software packages wanted...
The system profile would have the IP address/mac addresses, etc..
I figure I have forgotten something real basic, not sure at this point.
My first thought was to name the "system" the same as the mac address, as in
00:0d:04...  That didn't appear to work, not sure on that either, yet if I show the
rendered kickstart the devices are there as defined in the "system" entry. 
That's how I figured that the "system" entry is not getting used.

Is there a way I can supply the "system" profile from the server being rebuilt
end? Or Do I have something else not set up right.

I am running  cobbler-1.2.4-1 version, under RH V5.2 x86_64...


Thanks in advance,

Tom Mackell

[Michael DeHaan]

Mackell, Thomas O wrote:
>  I have a small problem.
>
>  Our current Cobbler setup works fine, with the exception of one item.
>
>  With some of our servers, we have to use the buildiso to create a 
>  bootable disk.
>  
Ok...

>  That’s works fine, with the exception of the system profile not being
>
>  used by the booting system.
>
>  It would appear that only the distro “profile” defined kickstart file 
>  is being used.
>  
Build ISO in 1.2.X contains an option to include the entries for various 
system records on the ISO. Each system will appear by name. If you don't 
specify it, they are left off, and you just get the profiles. Naturally 
the profile records do not know anything about your system-specific 
customizations you have made in cobbler, so to include these, it's just:

cobbler buildiso --systems=sys1,sys2,sys3

And that will put those entires into the menu. We can't put all the 
system records in the menu automatically because there are limits to how 
long a syslinux menu can be. The Cobbler live cd was intended to be an 
alternative to this (it is more dynamic and can look up a system by 
searching for the mac address), though this solution does not work in 
the static IP case.



>  I noticed that the network devices do not get defined. Which make 
>  sense as there is no network devices in the profile, only the system 
>  profile has the devices.
>
>  The snippet returns nothing all blanks.
>  
Which snippet is this? This sounds like one or yours as 1.2.X does not 
contain any snippets for network profiles. I would speculate you're 
using the static network setup snippet on the Wiki. I recently upgraded 
this for inclusion in Cobbler 1.3, and you can see this version in git's 
devel branch -- this supports both static and non-static interfaces. The 
snippet up on the Wiki is useful but can be problematic as it does not 
do anything if you are doing profile based installs and doesn't know how 
to represent non-static interfaces. That's why I haven't included 
something based on it until now.

>  My setup has the high level profile with the kickstart file having
> the 
>  filesystems, software packages wanted…
>
>  The system profile would have the IP address/mac addresses, etc..
>  
Yeah, "System profile" is somewhat confusing. Cobbler has distributions, 
profiles, and systems. I take it you mean "system records" here.




>  I figure I have forgotten something real basic, not sure at this
> point.
>  
Try --systems as an argument to "buildiso" and see if that is what you 
need. If it's not quite what you want, let us know, and we can look into 
seeing how we might do that better.

>  My first thought was to name the “system” the same as the mac
> address, 
>  as in 00:0d:04… That didn’t appear to work, not sure on that either, 
>  yet if I show the rendered kickstart the devices are there as defined 
>  in the “system” entry. That’s how I figured that the “system” entry is 
>  not getting used.
>  
No, syslinux is purely static, we can't do dynamic lookups like this. 
The koan live CD /does/ do this, though currently there are some 
problems with grubby making this not a viable solution -- and it also 
does not work in static IP configurations that do not have any kind of 
DHCP. If you are DHCP'ing and configuring static networking later, that 
works, but you do need initial DHCP for that to work. Buildiso is purely 
a static image built on syslinux so it can't do that kind of autodetection.

Ultimately, this is a reason for pushing for PXE everywhere, but I 
understand that is not an immediately viable option in *lots* of 
environments.
>  Is there a way I can supply the “system” profile from the server being 
>  rebuilt end? Or Do I have something else not set up right.
>  
You could also use koan with --replace-self, provided you were doing a 
reinstall on a system that already had a viable Linux installation.

>  I am running cobbler-1.2.4-1 version, under RH V5.2 x86_64...
>
>  Thanks in advance,
>
>  Tom Mackell
>
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>

[HARRIS Jimmy (AXA-Tech-AU)]

>  Build ISO in 1.2.X contains an option to include the entries for
> various 
>  system records on the ISO. Each system will appear by name. If you don't 
>  specify it, they are left off, and you just get the profiles. Naturally 
>  the profile records do not know anything about your system-specific 
>  customizations you have made in cobbler, so to include these, it's just:
>
>  cobbler buildiso --systems=sys1,sys2,sys3
>
>  And that will put those entires into the menu. We can't put all the 
>  system records in the menu automatically because there are limits to how 
>  long a syslinux menu can be. The Cobbler live cd was intended to be an 
>  alternative to this (it is more dynamic and can look up a system by 
>  searching for the mac address), though this solution does not work in 
>  the static IP case.
>  
This is very useful for our (non-DHCP) environment - thanks!  Will Kickstart then use the
network details specified in the system record or will we still have to manually add them
during the install?

James

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[Michael DeHaan]

HARRIS Jimmy (AXA-Tech-AU) wrote:
> > Build ISO in 1.2.X contains an option to include the entries for
> various 
> > system records on the ISO. Each system will appear by name. If you don't 
> > specify it, they are left off, and you just get the profiles. Naturally 
> > the profile records do not know anything about your system-specific 
> > customizations you have made in cobbler, so to include these, it's just:
> >
> > cobbler buildiso --systems=sys1,sys2,sys3
> >
> > And that will put those entires into the menu. We can't put all the 
> > system records in the menu automatically because there are limits to how 
> > long a syslinux menu can be. The Cobbler live cd was intended to be an 
> > alternative to this (it is more dynamic and can look up a system by 
> > searching for the mac address), though this solution does not work in 
> > the static IP case.
> >     
>
>  This is very useful for our (non-DHCP) environment - thanks!  Will Kickstart then use the
> network details specified in the system record or will we still have to manually add them
> during the install?
>     
Kickstart will use the ones in the record, at least the ip address, 
subnet, and gateway of the first interface as stored in Cobbler.  
(Cobbler can store info on more than one).

It does not store any nameserver info, so you will want to see that 
/etc/cobbler/settings has server as an ip address in that case, or you 
can add "nameserver" to the kernel options line manually, your 
choice.      An easy way to do this is add it to the default kernel 
options in /etc/cobbler/settings.

--Michael




>  James
>
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>

[HARRIS Jimmy (AXA-Tech-AU)]

>  > This is very useful for our (non-DHCP) environment - thanks! 
> Will
>  Kickstart then use the network details specified in the system record
>  
or
>  will we still have to manually add them during the install?
>  >
>  
>  Kickstart will use the ones in the record, at least the ip address,
>  subnet, and gateway of the first interface as stored in Cobbler.
>  (Cobbler can store info on more than one).
>  
>  It does not store any nameserver info, so you will want to see that
>  /etc/cobbler/settings has server as an ip address in that case, or you
>  can add "nameserver" to the kernel options line manually, your
>  choice.      An easy way to do this is add it to the default kernel
>  options in /etc/cobbler/settings.
>  
If I add an option for nameserver to /etc/cobbler/settings and restart
cobblerd (cobbler-1.2.4-1), I get an error.

Settings:

kernel_options:
    ksdevice: eth0
    lang: ' '
    text: ~
    nameserver: '80.44.0.80'

Error:

[root@cobbler]# service cobblerd restart
Stopping cobbler daemon:                                   [FAILED]
Starting cobbler daemon: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/cobblerd", line 32, in ?
    api = bootapi.BootAPI()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/api.py", line 90, in
__init__
    self.deserialize()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/api.py", line 448, in
deserialize
    return self._config.deserialize()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/config.py", line 194,
in deserialize
    if not serializer.deserialize(x,topological=True):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/serializer.py", line
125, in deserialize
    rc = storage_module.deserialize(obj,topological)
  File
"/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/modules/serializer_yaml.py",
line 136, in deserialize
    obj.from_datastruct(datastruct)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/collection.py", line
144, in from_datastruct
    item = self.factory_produce(self.config,seed_data)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/collection_distros.py",
line 40, in factory_produce
    return distro.Distro(config).from_datastruct(seed_data)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/item.py", line 53, in
__init__
    self.clear(is_subobject)      # reset behavior differs for
inheritance cases
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/item_distro.py", line
44, in clear
    self.owners                 = self.settings.default_ownership
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/settings.py", line 137,
in __getattr__
    if self._attributes.has_key(name):
AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'has_key'
                                                           [FAILED]

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confidential and may be subject to legal privilege.  If you are not 
the intended recipient you must not use, distribute or copy this 
email.  If you have received this email in error please notify the 
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[Michael DeHaan]

HARRIS Jimmy (AXA-Tech-AU) wrote:
> >> This is very useful for our (non-DHCP) environment - thanks! 
> Will
> >>       
> > Kickstart then use the network details specified in the system record
> >     
>  or
>    
> > will we still have to manually add them during the install?
> >     
> > Kickstart will use the ones in the record, at least the ip address,
> > subnet, and gateway of the first interface as stored in Cobbler.
> > (Cobbler can store info on more than one).
> >
> > It does not store any nameserver info, so you will want to see that
> > /etc/cobbler/settings has server as an ip address in that case, or you
> > can add "nameserver" to the kernel options line manually, your
> > choice.      An easy way to do this is add it to the default kernel
> > options in /etc/cobbler/settings.
> >     
>
>  If I add an option for nameserver to /etc/cobbler/settings and restart
>  cobblerd (cobbler-1.2.4-1), I get an error.
>
>  Settings:
>
>  kernel_options:
>      ksdevice: eth0
>      lang: ' '
>      text: ~
>      nameserver: '80.44.0.80'
>
>  Error:
>
>  [root@cobbler]# service cobblerd restart
>  Stopping cobbler daemon:                                   [FAILED]
>  Starting cobbler daemon: Traceback (most recent call last):
>    File "/usr/bin/cobblerd", line 32, in ?
>      api = bootapi.BootAPI()
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/api.py", line 90, in
>  __init__
>      self.deserialize()
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/api.py", line 448, in
>  deserialize
>      return self._config.deserialize()
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/config.py", line 194,
>  in deserialize
>      if not serializer.deserialize(x,topological=True):
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/serializer.py", line
>  125, in deserialize
>      rc = storage_module.deserialize(obj,topological)
>    File
>  "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/modules/serializer_yaml.py",
>  line 136, in deserialize
>      obj.from_datastruct(datastruct)
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/collection.py", line
>  144, in from_datastruct
>      item = self.factory_produce(self.config,seed_data)
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/collection_distros.py",
>  line 40, in factory_produce
>      return distro.Distro(config).from_datastruct(seed_data)
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/item.py", line 53, in
>  __init__
>      self.clear(is_subobject)      # reset behavior differs for
>  inheritance cases
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/item_distro.py", line
>  44, in clear
>      self.owners                 = self.settings.default_ownership
>    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/settings.py", line 137,
>  in __getattr__
>      if self._attributes.has_key(name):
>  AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'has_key'
>                                                             [FAILED]
>
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>  This email (including any attachments) contains information which is 
>  confidential and may be subject to legal privilege.  If you are not 
>  the intended recipient you must not use, distribute or copy this 
>  email.  If you have received this email in error please notify the 
>  sender immediately and delete this email. Any views expressed in this 
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>     
Most likely you have edited the file such that it is no longer in valid 
YAML format.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML and yaml.org for further info.

--Michael

[HARRIS Jimmy (AXA-Tech-AU)]

> > If I add an option for nameserver to /etc/cobbler/settings and
> restart
> > cobblerd (cobbler-1.2.4-1), I get an error.
> >
> > Settings:
> >
> > kernel_options:
> >     ksdevice: eth0
> >     lang: ' '
> >     text: ~
> >     nameserver: '80.44.0.80'
> >   
>  
>  Most likely you have edited the file such that it is no longer in
> valid 
>  YAML format.
>
>  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML and yaml.org for further info.
>
>  --Michael
>  
You were correct - thanks.  I had accidentally introduced a trailing space.

James



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confidential and may be subject to legal privilege.  If you are not 
the intended recipient you must not use, distribute or copy this 
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sender immediately and delete this email. Any views expressed in this 
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