Red Hat

I'm using a script in %pre that prompts for IP, hostname, etc. The answers are dumped out as variables and used to set up the config files in %post All works well.

Now, it's being used to install the OS on an HP Proliant that's in a remote datacenter via iLO, and it takes about an hour to transfer all of the files over iLO. So I got clever, commented out "cdrom" and added url --url http://ip.of.my.yum.server/path/to/os/ Then, at the end of %pre, I added /sbin/ifconfig eth0 $IP netmask $NM up However... it appears that kickstart sees the "url" directive and therefore assumes that it must have networking RIGHT NOW! It tries DHCP, fails, then runs %pre. I'm not certain if it ever raises the interface or not, but it complains "Unable to read package metadata"

Is there a way to do what I want to do... NOT configure eth0 in kickstart, but the way I'm doing it, raise the interface, and install from a network source instead of the disc?

I am sure you are feeding the kickstart file remotely, which means your system's ethernet adapter is already acquiring IP through DHCP (otherwise it's not possible to do a network installation without a DHCP server).

Now, if you need to configure your card with specific IP/subnetmask, you would need to add the "network" option after specifying the installation tree source, url in your case. Here's what my kickstart file looks like:

Code:

install
url --url http://10.0.1.93/repo/
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
network --activate --onboot yes --device eth0 --bootproto static --ip 10.0.1.101 --netmask
255.255.255.0 --noipv6 --hostname blue

The --activate switch works on RHEL 6.x only. It activates (reactivates if you have only one NIC) the card with the IP/subnet specified.

Why are you sure of that?

I'm not. The kickstart file is on the DVD. There is no DHCP in this environment, and won't be. That isn't a decision I made or agree with, but it is what it is.