Kickstart

<# CC7: Kickstart

Kickstart files

Kickstart is a mechanism allowing automated and unattended system installations. At CERN kickstart installations can be performed by AIMS service (including PXE boot). For AIMS documentation please refer to: AIMS2 documentation. For full documentation on all available Kickstart options, please consult the Red Hat Installation Guide.

An example Kickstart file, describing the installation of a "Software Development Workstation (CERN Recommended Setup)" desktop machine, can be downloaded here. Please note that this example file (most likely) needs to be tailored for your hardware, and for your software needs.

Alternatively, you can also use the system utility /usr/sbin/system-config-kickstart to generate a template file, and then edit the generated file to include the "CERN recommended" package groups listed in the example mentioned above.

Please be aware that Kickstart is not very user-friendly, typos or syntax errors may result in impressive-looking python tracebacks (where the most valuable information is at the bottom...).