On a default Fedora installation with a sufficiently large disk, /home is a separate filesystem and should not contain any required system files. Thus it ought to be possible to completely re-install Fedora, the same version as was previously installed, without over-writing /home. I'd like to do this with kickstart, if possible. I think Anaconda offers enough options but I find the documentation a bit confusing for this purpose. Is anyone aware of an online reference describing how to do this?
On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 22:55:57 +0000 CLOSE Dave Dave.Close@us.thalesgroup.com wrote:
On a default Fedora installation with a sufficiently large disk, /home is a separate filesystem and should not contain any required system files. Thus it ought to be possible to completely re-install Fedora, the same version as was previously installed, without over-writing /home. I'd like to do this with kickstart, if possible. I think Anaconda offers enough options but I find the documentation a bit confusing for this purpose. Is anyone aware of an online reference describing how to do this?
I install new versions from the standard distributions with no problems. Just be careful that none of the partitions that you wish to preserve are not marked for formatting in Anaconda.
Hi Dave as far as possible I do the installation(s) using a kickstart file. It is not possible, when you install from a Live CD. My disk-partitionning in the kickstasrt file looks like:
# System bootloader configuration bootloader --location=mbr --boot-drive=nvme0n1 # Partition clearing information clearpart --none --initlabel # Disk partitioning information part swap --fstype="swap" --onpart=nvme0n1p3 part /home --fstype="ext4" --onpart=nvme0n1p4 --noformat part / --fstype="ext4" --onpart=nvme0n1p2 part /boot/efi --fstype="vfat" --onpart=nvme0n1p1
suomi
On 19/06/2019 02.14, Geoffrey Leach wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 22:55:57 +0000 CLOSE Dave Dave.Close@us.thalesgroup.com wrote:
On a default Fedora installation with a sufficiently large disk, /home is a separate filesystem and should not contain any required system files. Thus it ought to be possible to completely re-install Fedora, the same version as was previously installed, without over-writing /home. I'd like to do this with kickstart, if possible. I think Anaconda offers enough options but I find the documentation a bit confusing for this purpose. Is anyone aware of an online reference describing how to do this?
I install new versions from the standard distributions with no problems. Just be careful that none of the partitions that you wish to preserve are not marked for formatting in Anaconda. _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org
On 6/18/19 3:55 PM, CLOSE Dave wrote:
On a default Fedora installation with a sufficiently large disk, /home is a separate filesystem and should not contain any required system files. Thus it ought to be possible to completely re-install Fedora, the same version as was previously installed, without over-writing /home. I'd like to do this with kickstart, if possible. I think Anaconda offers enough options but I find the documentation a bit confusing for this purpose. Is anyone aware of an online reference describing how to do this?
I do this with PXE kickstarts. I started with the default one that anaconda created and modified it from there. If you do an install, there should be a /root/anaconda-ks.cfg. I used the kickstart reference to gradually build up the kickstart file to do what I wanted.
suomi (fedora@ayni.com) wrote:
as far as possible I do the installation(s) using a kickstart file. It is not possible, when you install from a Live CD. My disk-partitionning in the kickstasrt file looks like:
# System bootloader configuration bootloader --location=mbr --boot-drive=nvme0n1 # Partition clearing information clearpart --none --initlabel # Disk partitioning information part swap --fstype="swap" --onpart=nvme0n1p3 part /home --fstype="ext4" --onpart=nvme0n1p4 --noformat part / --fstype="ext4" --onpart=nvme0n1p2 part /boot/efi --fstype="vfat" --onpart=nvme0n1p1
Thank you. That is precisely the example I needed. This really should be in some kind of help file for Fedora.
suomi (fedora@ayni.com) wrote:
as far as possible I do the installation(s) using a kickstart file. It is not possible, when you install from a Live CD. My disk-partitionning in the kickstasrt file looks like:
# System bootloader configuration bootloader --location=mbr --boot-drive=nvme0n1 # Partition clearing information clearpart --none --initlabel # Disk partitioning information part swap --fstype="swap" --onpart=nvme0n1p3 part /home --fstype="ext4" --onpart=nvme0n1p4 --noformat part / --fstype="ext4" --onpart=nvme0n1p2 part /boot/efi --fstype="vfat" --onpart=nvme0n1p1
I responded:
Thank you. That is precisely the example I needed. This really should be in some kind of help file for Fedora.
Well, not so fast. suomi's example did not involve LVM but LVM is the default for Fedora. Trying to follow the example and adjusting for LVM doesn't work for me. With these kickstart commands,
bootloader --driveorder=sda --location=mbr --boot-drive=sda clearpart --none --initlabel part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=500 --onpart=sda part pv.01 --noformat --onpart=sda volgroup vg_test1 pv.01 --noformat logvol /home --noformat --name=lv_home --vgname=vg_test1 logvol / --useexisting --name=lv_root --vgname=vg_test1 logvol swap --useexisting --name=lv_swap --vgname=vg_test1
installation fails with the message, "Members may not be specified for preexisting volgroup".
I'm not sure to what "members" refers in that message. If I change the volgroup line to omit "pv.01", installation fails saying, 'Volume group "vg_test1" given in volgroup command does not exist.' If "members" means the logvol lines, then where can I specify noformat for /home? (And checking /dev/mapper via TTY2 shows that the volgroup does exist, though it wasn't activated.)
I wrote:
Well, not so fast. suomi's example did not involve LVM but LVM is the default for Fedora. Trying to follow the example and adjusting for LVM doesn't work for me. With these kickstart commands,
bootloader --driveorder=sda --location=mbr --boot-drive=sda clearpart --none --initlabel part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=500 --onpart=sda part pv.01 --noformat --onpart=sda volgroup vg_test1 pv.01 --noformat logvol /home --noformat --name=lv_home --vgname=vg_test1 logvol / --useexisting --name=lv_root --vgname=vg_test1 logvol swap --useexisting --name=lv_swap --vgname=vg_test1
installation fails with the message, "Members may not be specified for preexisting volgroup".
Found my error. The following commands work:
bootloader --driveorder=sda --location=mbr --boot-drive=sda clearpart --none --initlabel part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=500 --onpart=sda1 part pv.01 --noformat --onpart=sda2 volgroup vg_test1 --noformat logvol /home --noformat --name=lv_home --vgname=vg_test1 logvol / --useexisting --name=lv_root --vgname=vg_test1 logvol swap --useexisting --name=lv_swap --vgname=vg_test1
Basically, onpart needed the partition number, not just the disk name. I also omitted pv.01 from volgroup but not sure if that was necessary.
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CLOSE Dave -
fedora -
Geoffrey Leach -
Samuel Sieb