Kickstart Installation:

What is Kickstart?

Due to the need for automated installation, Red Hat has created the kickstart installation method. With this method, a system administrator can create a single file containing the answers to all the questions that would normally be asked during a typical Red Hat interactive Linux installation.

Kickstart files can be kept on single server system, and read by individual computers during the installation. The kickstart installation method is powerful enough that often a single kickstart file can be used to install Red Hat Linux on multiple machines, making it ideal for network and system administrators.

Kickstart lets you automate most of a Red Hat Linux installation, including:

Language selection
Network configuration
Keyboard selection
Boot loader installation (LILO)
Disk partitioning
Mouse Selection
X Window System configuration

Kickstart installations can only be performed using a local CD-ROM, a local hard drive, or NFS installation methods. FTP and HTTP installations cannot be automated using kickstart mode. (Starting with RedHat 7.0 and higher, FTP and HTTP are now supported)

To use kickstart mode, you must first create a kickstart file (ks.cfg), and make it available to the Red Hat Linux installation program.

CONFIGURATION:

ON Kickstart Server:

1. Create ISO image of RHEL 5.3 CD.

2. Copy ISO image (eg. rhel.iso) of RHEL DVD to any folder (/var/ftp/pub)

(or just copy entire files and folder from RHEL DVD)

3. Share that folder (pub) using NFS

4. Create a kickstart file (ks.cfg) in /var/ftp/pub:

vim /var/ftp/pub/ks.cfg

# sample file of kickstart through nfs
# Kickstart file automatically generated by anaconda.
install
nfs   --server=30.0.0.11 --dir=/ostree
key   --skip
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
xconfig --startxonboot --resolution 800x600
network --device eth0 --bootproto dhcp
rootpw --iscrypted $1$eRPnpYlB$0nV7UErRHYxeqHz8tzrgN0
firewall --disabled
authconfig   --enableshadow --enablemd5
selinux --disabled
timezone --utc Asia/Kolkata
bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda --append="rhgb quiet"

# The following is the partition information you requested
# Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed here so unless you clear all partitions first, # this is not guaranteed to work
clearpart --linux --initlabel
part   /boot --fstype ext3 --size=200
part /   --fstype   ext3 --size=18000
part swap --size=512
%packages
@office
@editors
@text-internet
@gnome-desktop

Note:

You can also create ks.cfg, just by coping /root/anaconda-ks.cfg.
or You can run system-config-kickstart in graphical mode and open /root/anaconda-ks.cfg, modify it according to your requirement and save as ks.cfg in /var/ftp/pub.
Now Configure DHCP (if you want to automatically provide IP to Kickstart Client)

ON Client Machine

Insert RedHat/CentOS DVD in the client computer, where you have to install linux using kickstart method.

Boot: linux ks=nfs:192.168.1.11:/mydir/ks.cfg (if you have dhcp)

Note: If you don’t have DHCP Server. Then you will have to mention static IP address in the kickstart file. And type following while installation.

Boot: linux ks=nfs:192.168.1.11:/mydir/ks.cfg ip=192.168.1.13 netmask=255.255.255.0

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