Kickstart Options

The following options can be placed in a kickstart file. If you prefer to use a graphical interface
for creating your kickstart file, use the Kickstart Configurator application. Refer to Chapter 29,
Kickstart Configurator for details.
Note
If the option is followed by an equals mark (=), a value must be specified after it.
In the example commands, options in brackets ([]) are optional arguments for the
command.
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
282
autopart (optional)
Automatically create partitions — 1 GB or more root (/) partition, a swap partition, and an
appropriate boot partition for the architecture. One or more of the default partition sizes can
be redefined with the part directive.
ignoredisk (optional)
Causes the installer to ignore the specified disks. This is useful if you use autopartition and
want to be sure that some disks are ignored. For example, without ignoredisk, attempting
to deploy on a SAN-cluster the kickstart would fail, as the installer detects passive paths to
the SAN that return no partition table.
The ignoredisk option is also useful if you have multiple paths to your disks.
The syntax is:
ignoredisk --drives=drive1,drive2,...
where driveN is one of sda, sdb,..., hda,... etc.
autostep (optional)
Similar to interactive except it goes to the next screen for you. It is used mostly for
debugging.
• --autoscreenshot — Take a screenshot at every step during installation and copy the
images over to /root/anaconda-screenshots after installation is complete. This is most
useful for documentation.
auth or authconfig (required)
Sets up the authentication options for the system. It is similar to the authconfig command,
which can be run after the install. By default, passwords are normally encrypted and are not
shadowed.
• --enablemd5 — Use md5 encryption for user passwords.
• --enablenis — Turns on NIS support. By default, --enablenis uses whatever domain it
finds on the network. A domain should almost always be set by hand with the
--nisdomain= option.
• --nisdomain= — NIS domain name to use for NIS services.
• --nisserver= — Server to use for NIS services (broadcasts by default).
• --useshadow or --enableshadow — Use shadow passwords.
• --enableldap — Turns on LDAP support in /etc/nsswitch.conf, allowing your system
to retrieve information about users (UIDs, home directories, shells, etc.) from an LDAP
directory. To use this option, you must install the nss_ldap package. You must also
specify a server and a base DN (distinguished name) with --ldapserver= and
Kickstart Options
283
--ldapbasedn=.
• --enableldapauth — Use LDAP as an authentication method. This enables the
pam_ldap module for authentication and changing passwords, using an LDAP directory.
To use this option, you must have the nss_ldap package installed. You must also specify
a server and a base DN with --ldapserver= and --ldapbasedn=.
• --ldapserver= — If you specified either --enableldap or --enableldapauth, use this
option to specify the name of the LDAP server to use. This option is set in the
/etc/ldap.conf file.
• --ldapbasedn= — If you specified either --enableldap or --enableldapauth, use this
option to specify the DN in your LDAP directory tree under which user information is
stored. This option is set in the /etc/ldap.conf file.
• --enableldaptls — Use TLS (Transport Layer Security) lookups. This option allows
LDAP to send encrypted usernames and passwords to an LDAP server before
authentication.
• --enablekrb5 — Use Kerberos 5 for authenticating users. Kerberos itself does not know
about home directories, UIDs, or shells. If you enable Kerberos, you must make users'
accounts known to this workstation by enabling LDAP, NIS, or Hesiod or by using the
/usr/sbin/useradd command. If you use this option, you must have the pam_krb5
package installed.
• --krb5realm= — The Kerberos 5 realm to which your workstation belongs.
• --krb5kdc= — The KDC (or KDCs) that serve requests for the realm. If you have multiple
KDCs in your realm, separate their names with commas (,).
• --krb5adminserver= — The KDC in your realm that is also running kadmind. This server
handles password changing and other administrative requests. This server must be run
on the master KDC if you have more than one KDC.
• --enablehesiod — Enable Hesiod support for looking up user home directories, UIDs,
and shells. More information on setting up and using Hesiod on your network is in
/usr/share/doc/glibc-2.x.x/README.hesiod, which is included in the glibc
package. Hesiod is an extension of DNS that uses DNS records to store information
about users, groups, and various other items.
• --hesiodlhs — The Hesiod LHS ("left-hand side") option, set in /etc/hesiod.conf.
This option is used by the Hesiod library to determine the name to search DNS for when
looking up information, similar to LDAP's use of a base DN.
• --hesiodrhs — The Hesiod RHS ("right-hand side") option, set in /etc/hesiod.conf.
This option is used by the Hesiod library to determine the name to search DNS for when
looking up information, similar to LDAP's use of a base DN.
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
284
Tip
To look up user information for "jim", the Hesiod library looks up
jim.passwd, which should resolve to a TXT record that looks like
what his passwd entry would look like (jim:*:501:501:Jungle
Jim:/home/jim:/bin/bash). For groups, the situation is identical, except
jim.group would be used.
Looking up users and groups by number is handled by making "501.uid" a
CNAME for "jim.passwd", and "501.gid" a CNAME for "jim.group". Note that the
library does not place a period . in front of the LHS and RHS values when
performing a search. Therefore the LHS and RHS values need to have a period
placed in front of them in order if they require this.
• --enablesmbauth — Enables authentication of users against an SMB server (typically a
Samba or Windows server). SMB authentication support does not know about home
directories, UIDs, or shells. If you enable SMB, you must make users' accounts known to
the workstation by enabling LDAP, NIS, or Hesiod or by using the /usr/sbin/useradd
command to make their accounts known to the workstation. To use this option, you must
have the pam_smb package installed.
• --smbservers= — The name of the server(s) to use for SMB authentication. To specify
more than one server, separate the names with commas (,).
• --smbworkgroup= — The name of the workgroup for the SMB servers.
• --enablecache — Enables the nscd service. The nscd service caches information about
users, groups, and various other types of information. Caching is especially helpful if you
choose to distribute information about users and groups over your network using NIS,
LDAP, or hesiod.
bootloader (required)
Specifies how the boot loader should be installed. This option is required for both
installations and upgrades.
• --append= — Specifies kernel parameters. To specify multiple parameters, separate
them with spaces. For example:
bootloader --location=mbr --append="hdd=ide-scsi ide=nodma"
• --driveorder — Specify which drive is first in the BIOS boot order. For example:
bootloader --driveorder=sda,hda
Kickstart Options
285
• --location= — Specifies where the boot record is written. Valid values are the following:
mbr (the default), partition (installs the boot loader on the first sector of the partition
containing the kernel), or none (do not install the boot loader).
• --password= — If using GRUB, sets the GRUB boot loader password to the one
specified with this option. This should be used to restrict access to the GRUB shell, where
arbitrary kernel options can be passed.
• --md5pass= — If using GRUB, similar to --password= except the password should
already be encrypted.
• --upgrade — Upgrade the existing boot loader configuration, preserving the old entries.
This option is only available for upgrades.
clearpart (optional)
Removes partitions from the system, prior to creation of new partitions. By default, no
partitions are removed.
Note
If the clearpart command is used, then the --onpart command cannot be
used on a logical partition.
• --all — Erases all partitions from the system.
• --drives= — Specifies which drives to clear partitions from. For example, the following
clears all the partitions on the first two drives on the primary IDE controller:
clearpart --drives=hda,hdb --all
• --initlabel — Initializes the disk label to the default for your architecture (for example
msdos for x86 and gpt for Itanium). It is useful so that the installation program does not
ask if it should initialize the disk label if installing to a brand new hard drive.
• --linux — Erases all Linux partitions.
• --none (default) — Do not remove any partitions.
cmdline (optional)
Perform the installation in a completely non-interactive command line mode. Any prompts
for interaction halts the install. This mode is useful on IBM System z systems with the x3270
console.
device (optional)
On most PCI systems, the installation program autoprobes for Ethernet and SCSI cards
properly. On older systems and some PCI systems, however, kickstart needs a hint to find
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
286
the proper devices. The device command, which tells the installation program to install
extra modules, is in this format:
device --opts=
• — Replace with either scsi or eth.
• — Replace with the name of the kernel module which should be installed.
• --opts= — Mount options to use for mounting the NFS export. Any options that can be
specified in /etc/fstab for an NFS mount are allowed. The options are listed in the
nfs(5) man page. Multiple options are separated with a comma.
driverdisk (optional)
Driver diskettes can be used during kickstart installations. You must copy the driver
diskettes's contents to the root directory of a partition on the system's hard drive. Then you
must use the driverdisk command to tell the installation program where to look for the
driver disk.
driverdisk [--type=]
Alternatively, a network location can be specified for the driver diskette:
driverdisk --source=ftp://path/to/dd.img
driverdisk --source=
driverdisk --source=nfs:host:/path/to/img
• — Partition containing the driver disk.
• --type= — File system type (for example, vfat or ext2).
firewall (optional)
This option corresponds to the Firewall Configuration screen in the installation program:
firewall --enabled|--disabled [--trust=] [--port=]
• --enabled or --enable — Reject incoming connections that are not in response to
outbound requests, such as DNS replies or DHCP requests. If access to services running
on this machine is needed, you can choose to allow specific services through the firewall.
• --disabled or --disable — Do not configure any iptables rules.
• --trust= — Listing a device here, such as eth0, allows all traffic coming from that device
to go through the firewall. To list more than one device, use --trust eth0 --trust
eth1. Do NOT use a comma-separated format such as --trust eth0, eth1.
• — Replace with one or more of the following to allow the specified services
Kickstart Options
287
through the firewall.
• --ssh
• --telnet
• --smtp
• --http
• --ftp
• --port= — You can specify that ports be allowed through the firewall using the
port:protocol format. For example, to allow IMAP access through your firewall, specify
imap:tcp. Numeric ports can also be specified explicitly; for example, to allow UDP
packets on port 1234 through, specify 1234:udp. To specify multiple ports, separate them
by commas.
firstboot (optional)
Determine whether the Setup Agent starts the first time the system is booted. If enabled,
the firstboot package must be installed. If not specified, this option is disabled by default.
• --enable or --enabled — The Setup Agent is started the first time the system boots.
• --disable or --disabled — The Setup Agent is not started the first time the system
boots.
• --reconfig — Enable the Setup Agent to start at boot time in reconfiguration mode.
This mode enables the language, mouse, keyboard, root password, security level, time
zone, and networking configuration options in addition to the default ones.
halt (optional)
Halt the system after the installation has successfully completed. This is similar to a manual
installation, where anaconda displays a message and waits for the user to press a key
before rebooting. During a kickstart installation, if no completion method is specified, the
reboot option is used as default.
The halt option is roughly equivalent to the shutdown -h command.
For other completion methods, refer to the poweroff, reboot, and shutdown kickstart
options.
graphical (optional)
Perform the kickstart installation in graphical mode. This is the default.
install (optional)
Tells the system to install a fresh system rather than upgrade an existing system. This is the
default mode. For installation, you must specify the type of installation from cdrom,
harddrive, nfs, or url (for FTP or HTTP installations). The install command and the
installation method command must be on separate lines.
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
288
• cdrom — Install from the first CD-ROM drive on the system.
• harddrive — Install from a Red Hat installation tree on a local drive, which must be
either vfat or ext2.
• --biospart=
BIOS partition to install from (such as 82).
• --partition=
Partition to install from (such as sdb2).
• --dir=
Directory containing the variant directory of the installation tree.
For example:
harddrive --partition=hdb2 --dir=/tmp/install-tree
• nfs — Install from the NFS server specified.
• --server=
Server from which to install (hostname or IP).
• --dir=
Directory containing the variant directory of the installation tree.
• --opts=
Mount options to use for mounting the NFS export. (optional)
For example:
nfs --server=nfsserver.example.com --dir=/tmp/install-tree
• url — Install from an installation tree on a remote server via FTP or HTTP.
For example:
url --url >
or:
url --url >
Kickstart Options
289
interactive (optional)
Uses the information provided in the kickstart file during the installation, but allow for
inspection and modification of the values given. You are presented with each screen of the
installation program with the values from the kickstart file. Either accept the values by
clicking Next or change the values and click Next to continue. Refer to the autostep
command.
iscsi (optional)
issci --ipaddr= [options].
• --target —
• --port= —
• --user= —
• --password= —
key (optional)
Specify an installation key, which is needed to aid in package selection and identify your
system for support purposes. This command is Red Hat Enterprise Linux-specific; it has no
meaning for Fedora and will be ignored.
• --skip — Skip entering a key. Usually if the key command is not given, anaconda will
pause at this step to prompt for a key. This option allows automated installation to
continue if you do not have a key or do not want to provide one.
keyboard (required)
Sets system keyboard type. Here is the list of available keyboards on i386, Itanium, and
Alpha machines:
be-latin1, bg, br-abnt2, cf, cz-lat2, cz-us-qwertz, de, de-latin1,
de-latin1-nodeadkeys, dk, dk-latin1, dvorak, es, et, fi, fi-latin1,
fr, fr-latin0, fr-latin1, fr-pc, fr_CH, fr_CH-latin1, gr, hu, hu101,
is-latin1, it, it-ibm, it2, jp106, la-latin1, mk-utf, no, no-latin1,
pl, pt-latin1, ro_win, ru, ru-cp1251, ru-ms, ru1, ru2, ru_win,
se-latin1, sg, sg-latin1, sk-qwerty, slovene, speakup, speakup-lt,
sv-latin1, sg, sg-latin1, sk-querty, slovene, trq, ua, uk, us, us-acentos
The file /usr/lib/python2.2/site-packages/rhpl/keyboard_models.py also contains
this list and is part of the rhpl package.
lang (required)
Sets the language to use during installation and the default language to use on the installed
system. For example, to set the language to English, the kickstart file should contain the
following line:
lang en_US
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
290
The file /usr/share/system-config-language/locale-list provides a list of the valid
language codes in the first column of each line and is part of the system-config-language
package.
Certain languages (mainly Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indic languages) are not
supported during text mode installation. If one of these languages is specified using the lang
command, installation will continue in English though the running system will have the
specified langauge by default.
langsupport (deprecated)
The langsupport keyword is deprecated and its use will cause an error message to be
printed to the screen and installation to halt. Instead of using the langsupport keyword, you
should now list the support package groups for all languages you want supported in the
%packages section of your kickstart file. For instance, adding support for French means you
should add the following to %packages:
@french-support
logvol (optional)
Create a logical volume for Logical Volume Management (LVM) with the syntax:
logvol --vgname= --size= --name=
The options are as follows:
• --noformat — Use an existing logical volume and do not format it.
• --useexisting — Use an existing logical volume and reformat it.
• --fstype= — Sets the file system type for the logical volume. Valid values are ext2, ext3,
swap, and vfat.
• --fsoptions= — Specifies a free form string of options to be used when mounting the
filesystem. This string will be copied into the /etc/fstab file of the installed system and
should be enclosed in quotes.
• --bytes-per-inode= — Specifies the size of inodes on the filesystem to be made on the
logical volume. Not all filesystems support this option, so it is silently ignored for those
cases.
• --grow= — Tells the logical volume to grow to fill available space (if any), or up to the
maximum size setting.
• --maxsize= — The maximum size in megabytes when the logical volume is set to grow.
Specify an integer value here, and do not append the number with MB.
• --recommended= — Determine the size of the logical volume automatically.
Kickstart Options
291
• --percent= — Specify the size of the logical volume as a percentage of available space
in the volume group.
Create the partition first, create the logical volume group, and then create the logical
volume. For example:
part pv.01 --size 3000
volgroup myvg pv.01
logvol / --vgname=myvg --size=2000 --name=rootvol
logging (optional)
This command controls the error logging of anaconda during installation. It has no effect on
the installed system.
• --host= — Send logging information to the given remote host, which must be running a
syslogd process configured to accept remote logging.
• --port= — If the remote syslogd process uses a port other than the default, it may be
specified with this option.
• --level= — One of debug, info, warning, error, or critical.
Specify the minimum level of messages that appear on tty3. All messages will still be sent
to the log file regardless of this level, however.
mediacheck (optional)
If given, this will force anaconda to run mediacheck on the installation media. This
command requires that installs be attended, so it is disabled by default.
monitor (optional)
If the monitor command is not given, anaconda will use X to automatically detect your
monitor settings. Please try this before manually configuring your monitor.
• --hsync= — Specifies the horizontal sync frequency of the monitor.
• --monitor= — Use specified monitor; monitor name should be from the list of monitors in
/usr/share/hwdata/MonitorsDB from the hwdata package. The list of monitors can also be
found on the X Configuration screen of the Kickstart Configurator. This is ignored if
--hsync or --vsync is provided. If no monitor information is provided, the installation
program tries to probe for it automatically.
• --noprobe= — Do not try to probe the monitor.
• --vsync= — Specifies the vertical sync frequency of the monitor.
mouse (deprecated)
The mouse keyword is deprecated.
network (optional)
Configures network information for the system. If the kickstart installation does not require
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
292
networking (in other words, it is not installed over NFS, HTTP, or FTP), networking is not
configured for the system. If the installation does require networking and network
information is not provided in the kickstart file, the installation program assumes that the
installation should be done over eth0 via a dynamic IP address (BOOTP/DHCP), and
configures the final, installed system to determine its IP address dynamically. The network
option configures networking information for kickstart installations via a network as well as
for the installed system.
• --bootproto= — One of dhcp, bootp, or static.
It defaults to dhcp. bootp and dhcp are treated the same.
The DHCP method uses a DHCP server system to obtain its networking configuration. As
you might guess, the BOOTP method is similar, requiring a BOOTP server to supply the
networking configuration. To direct a system to use DHCP:
network --bootproto=dhcp
To direct a machine to use BOOTP to obtain its networking configuration, use the
following line in the kickstart file:
network --bootproto=bootp
The static method requires that you enter all the required networking information in the
kickstart file. As the name implies, this information is static and are used during and after
the installation. The line for static networking is more complex, as you must include all
network configuration information on one line. You must specify the IP address, netmask,
gateway, and nameserver. For example: (the "\" indicates that this should be read as one
continuous line):
network --bootproto=static --ip=10.0.2.15 --netmask=255.255.255.0 \
--gateway=10.0.2.254 --nameserver=10.0.2.1
If you use the static method, be aware of the following two restrictions:
• All static networking configuration information must be specified on one line; you
cannot wrap lines using a backslash, for example.
• You can also configure multiple nameservers here. To do so, specify them as a
comma-delimited list in the command line. For example:
network --bootproto=static --ip=10.0.2.15 --netmask=255.255.255.0 \
--gateway=10.0.2.254 --nameserver 192.168.2.1,192.168.3.1
• --device= — Used to select a specific Ethernet device for installation. Note that using
--device= is not effective unless the kickstart file is a local file (such as ks=floppy),
Kickstart Options
293
since the installation program configures the network to find the kickstart file. For
example:
network --bootproto=dhcp --device=eth0
• --ip= — IP address for the machine to be installed.
• --gateway= — Default gateway as an IP address.
• --nameserver= — Primary nameserver, as an IP address.
• --nodns — Do not configure any DNS server.
• --netmask= — Netmask for the installed system.
• --hostname= — Hostname for the installed system.
• --ethtool= — Specifies additional low-level settings for the network device which will be
passed to the ethtool program.
• --essid= — The network ID for wireless networks.
• --wepkey= — The encryption key for wireless networks.
• --onboot= — Whether or not to enable the device at boot time.
• --class= — The DHCP class.
• --mtu= — The MTU of the device.
• --noipv4 — Disable IPv4 on this device.
• --noipv6 — Disable IPv6 on this device.
multipath (optional)
multipath --name= --device= --rule=
part or partition (required for installs, ignored for upgrades)
Creates a partition on the system.
If more than one Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation exists on the system on different
partitions, the installation program prompts the user and asks which installation to upgrade.
Warning
All partitions created are formatted as part of the installation process unless
--noformat and --onpart are used.
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
294
For a detailed example of part in action, refer to Section 4.1, “Advanced Partitioning
Example”.
• — The is where the partition is mounted and must be of one of
the following forms:
• /
For example, /, /usr, /home
• swap
The partition is used as swap space.
To determine the size of the swap partition automatically, use the --recommended
option:
swap --recommended
The minimum size of the automatically-generated swap partition is no smaller than the
amount of RAM in the system and no larger than twice the amount of RAM in the
system.
• raid.
The partition is used for software RAID (refer to raid).
• pv.
The partition is used for LVM (refer to logvol).
• --size= — The minimum partition size in megabytes. Specify an integer value here such
as 500. Do not append the number with MB.
• --grow — Tells the partition to grow to fill available space (if any), or up to the maximum
size setting.
• --maxsize= — The maximum partition size in megabytes when the partition is set to
grow. Specify an integer value here, and do not append the number with MB.
• --noformat — Tells the installation program not to format the partition, for use with the
--onpart command.
• --onpart= or --usepart= — Put the partition on the already existing device. For
example:
partition /home --onpart=hda1
puts /home on /dev/hda1, which must already exist.
Kickstart Options
295
• --ondisk= or --ondrive= — Forces the partition to be created on a particular disk. For
example, --ondisk=sdb puts the partition on the second SCSI disk on the system.
• --asprimary — Forces automatic allocation of the partition as a primary partition, or the
partitioning fails.
• --type= (replaced by fstype) — This option is no longer available. Use fstype.
• --fstype= — Sets the file system type for the partition. Valid values are ext2, ext3,
swap, and vfat.
• --start= — Specifies the starting cylinder for the partition. It requires that a drive be
specified with --ondisk= or ondrive=. It also requires that the ending cylinder be
specified with --end= or the partition size be specified with --size=.
• --end= — Specifies the ending cylinder for the partition. It requires that the starting
cylinder be specified with --start=.
• --bytes-per-inode= — Specifies the size of inodes on the filesystem to be made on the
partition. Not all filesystems support this option, so it is silently ignored for those cases.
• --recommended — Determine the size of the partition automatically.
• --onbiosdisk — Forces the partition to be created on a particular disk as discovered by
the BIOS.
Note
If partitioning fails for any reason, diagnostic messages appear on virtual console
3.
poweroff (optional)
Shut down and power off the system after the installation has successfully completed.
Normally during a manual installation, anaconda displays a message and waits for the user
to press a key before rebooting. During a kickstart installation, if no completion method is
specified, the reboot option is used as default.
The poweroff option is roughly equivalent to the shutdown -p command.
Note
The poweroff option is highly dependent on the system hardware in use.
Specifically, certain hardware components such as the BIOS, APM (advanced
power management), and ACPI (advanced configuration and power interface)
must be able to interact with the system kernel. Contact your manufacturer for
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
296
more information on you system's APM/ACPI abilities.
For other completion methods, refer to the halt, reboot, and shutdown kickstart options.
raid (optional)
Assembles a software RAID device. This command is of the form:
raid --level= --device=
• — Location where the RAID file system is mounted. If it is /, the RAID level
must be 1 unless a boot partition (/boot) is present. If a boot partition is present, the
/boot partition must be level 1 and the root (/) partition can be any of the available types.
The (which denotes that multiple partitions can be listed) lists the RAID
identifiers to add to the RAID array.
• --level= — RAID level to use (0, 1, or 5).
• --device= — Name of the RAID device to use (such as md0 or md1). RAID devices
range from md0 to md15, and each may only be used once.
• --bytes-per-inode= — Specifies the size of inodes on the filesystem to be made on the
RAID device. Not all filesystems support this option, so it is silently ignored for those
cases.
• --spares= — Specifies the number of spare drives allocated for the RAID array. Spare
drives are used to rebuild the array in case of drive failure.
• --fstype= — Sets the file system type for the RAID array. Valid values are ext2, ext3,
swap, and vfat.
• --fsoptions= — Specifies a free form string of options to be used when mounting the
filesystem. This string will be copied into the /etc/fstab file of the installed system and
should be enclosed in quotes.
• --noformat — Use an existing RAID device and do not format the RAID array.
• --useexisting — Use an existing RAID device and reformat it.
The following example shows how to create a RAID level 1 partition for /, and a RAID level
5 for /usr, assuming there are three SCSI disks on the system. It also creates three swap
partitions, one on each drive.
part raid.01 --size=60 --ondisk=sda
part raid.02 --size=60 --ondisk=sdb
part raid.03 --size=60 --ondisk=sdc
Kickstart Options
297
part swap --size=128 --ondisk=sda
part swap --size=128 --ondisk=sdb
part swap --size=128 --ondisk=sdc
part raid.11 --size=1 --grow --ondisk=sda
part raid.12 --size=1 --grow --ondisk=sdb
part raid.13 --size=1 --grow --ondisk=sdc
raid / --level=1 --device=md0 raid.01 raid.02 raid.03
raid /usr --level=5 --device=md1 raid.11 raid.12 raid.13
For a detailed example of raid in action, refer to Section 4.1, “Advanced Partitioning
Example”.
reboot (optional)
Reboot after the installation is successfully completed (no arguments). Normally, kickstart
displays a message and waits for the user to press a key before rebooting.
The reboot option is roughly equivalent to the shutdown -r command.
Note
Use of the reboot option may result in an endless installation loop, depending
on the installation media and method.
The reboot option is the default completion method if no other methods are
explicitly specified in the kickstart file.
For other completion methods, refer to the halt, poweroff, and shutdown kickstart options.
repo (optional)
Configures additional yum repositories that may be used as sources for package
installation. Multiple repo lines may be specified.
repo --name= [--baseurl=| --mirrorlist=]
• --name= — The repo id. This option is required.
• --baseurl= — The URL for the repository. The variables that may be used in yum repo
config files are not supported here. You may use one of either this option or --mirrorlist,
not both.
• --mirrorlist= — The URL pointing at a list of mirrors for the repository. The variables
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
298
that may be used in yum repo config files are not supported here. You may use one of
either this option or --baseurl, not both.
rootpw (required)
Sets the system's root password to the argument.
rootpw [--iscrypted]
• --iscrypted — If this is present, the password argument is assumed to already be
encrypted.
selinux (optional)
Sets the state of SELinux on the installed system. SELinux defaults to enforcing in
anaconda.
selinux [--disabled|--enforcing|--permissive]
• --enforcing — Enables SELinux with the default targeted policy being enforced.
Note
If the selinux option is not present in the kickstart file, SELinux is enabled and
set to --enforcing by default.
• --permissive — Outputs warnings based on the SELinux policy, but does not actually
enforce the policy.
• --disabled — Disables SELinux completely on the system.
For complete information regarding SELinux for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, refer to the Red
Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide.
services (optional)
Modifies the default set of services that will run under the default runlevel. The services
listed in the disabled list will be disabled before the services listed in the enabled list are
enabled.
• --disabled — Disable the services given in the comma separated list.
• --enabled — Enable the services given in the comma separated list.
shutdown (optional)
Shut down the system after the installation has successfully completed. During a kickstart
installation, if no completion method is specified, the reboot option is used as default.
The shutdown option is roughly equivalent to the shutdown command.
Kickstart Options
299
For other completion methods, refer to the halt, poweroff, and reboot kickstart options.
skipx (optional)
If present, X is not configured on the installed system.
text (optional)
Perform the kickstart installation in text mode. Kickstart installations are performed in
graphical mode by default.
timezone (required)
Sets the system time zone to which may be any of the time zones listed by
timeconfig.
timezone [--utc]
• --utc — If present, the system assumes the hardware clock is set to UTC (Greenwich
Mean) time.
upgrade (optional)
Tells the system to upgrade an existing system rather than install a fresh system. You must
specify one of cdrom, harddrive, nfs, or url (for FTP and HTTP) as the location of the
installation tree. Refer to install for details.
user (optional)
Creates a new user on the system.
user --name= [--groups=] [--homedir=]
[--password=] [--iscrypted] [--shell=] [--uid=]
• --name= — Provides the name of the user. This option is required.
• --groups= — In addition to the default group, a comma separated list of group names the
user should belong to.
• --homedir= — The home directory for the user. If not provided, this defaults to
/home/.
• --password= — The new user's password. If not provided, the account will be locked by
default.
• --iscrypted= — Is the password provided by --password already encrypted or not?
• --shell= — The user's login shell. If not provided, this defaults to the system default.
• --uid= — The user's UID. If not provided, this defaults to the next available non-system
UID.
vnc (optional)
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
300
Allows the graphical installation to be viewed remotely via VNC. This method is usually
preferred over text mode, as there are some size and language limitations in text installs.
With no options, this command will start a VNC server on the machine with no password
and will print out the command that needs to be run to connect a remote machine.
vnc [--host=] [--port=] [--password=]
• --host= — Instead of starting a VNC server on the install machine, connect to the VNC
viewer process listening on the given hostname.
• --port= — Provide a port that the remote VNC viewer process is listening on. If not
provided, anaconda will use the VNC default.
• --password= — Set a password which must be provided to connect to the VNC session.
This is optional, but recommended.
volgroup (optional)
Use to create a Logical Volume Management (LVM) group with the syntax:
volgroup
The options are as follows:
• --noformat — Use an existing volume group and do not format it.
• --useexisting — Use an existing volume group and reformat it.
• --pesize= — Set the size of the physical extents.
Create the partition first, create the logical volume group, and then create the logical
volume. For example:
part pv.01 --size 3000
volgroup myvg pv.01
logvol / --vgname=myvg --size=2000 --name=rootvol
For a detailed example of volgroup in action, refer to Section 4.1, “Advanced Partitioning
Example”.
xconfig (optional)
Configures the X Window System. If this option is not given, the user must configure X
manually during the installation, if X was installed; this option should not be used if X is not
installed on the final system.
• --driver — Specify the X driver to use for the video hardware.
• --videoram= — Specifies the amount of video RAM the video card has.
Kickstart Options
301
• --defaultdesktop= — Specify either GNOME or KDE to set the default desktop
(assumes that GNOME Desktop Environment and/or KDE Desktop Environment has
been installed through %packages).
• --startxonboot — Use a graphical login on the installed system.
• --resolution= — Specify the default resolution for the X Window System on the
installed system. Valid values are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x1024,
1400x1050, 1600x1200. Be sure to specify a resolution that is compatible with the video
card and monitor.
• --depth= — Specify the default color depth for the X Window System on the installed
system. Valid values are 8, 16, 24, and 32. Be sure to specify a color depth that is
compatible with the video card and monitor.
zerombr (optional)
If zerombr is specified any invalid partition tables found on disks are initialized. This
destroys all of the contents of disks with invalid partition tables.
zfcp (optional)
Define a Fiber channel device (IBM System z).
zfcp [--devnum=] [--fcplun=] [--scsiid=]
[--scsilun=] [--wwpn=]
%include (optional)
Use the %include /path/to/file command to include the contents of another file in the
kickstart file as though the contents were at the location of the %include command in the
kickstart file.
4.1. Advanced Partitioning Example
The following is a single, integrated example showing the clearpart, raid, part, volgroup,
and logvol kickstart options in action:
clearpart --drives=hda,hdc --initlabel
# Raid 1 IDE config
part raid.11 --size 1000 --asprimary --ondrive=hda
part raid.12 --size 1000 --asprimary --ondrive=hda
part raid.13 --size 2000 --asprimary --ondrive=hda
part raid.14 --size 8000 --ondrive=hda
part raid.15 --size 1 --grow --ondrive=hda
part raid.21 --size 1000 --asprimary --ondrive=hdc
part raid.22 --size 1000 --asprimary --ondrive=hdc
part raid.23 --size 2000 --asprimary --ondrive=hdc
part raid.24 --size 8000 --ondrive=hdc
part raid.25 --size 1 --grow --ondrive=hdc
# You can add --spares=x
raid / --fstype ext3 --device md0 --level=RAID1 raid.11 raid.21
raid /safe --fstype ext3 --device md1 --level=RAID1 raid.12 raid.22
Chapter 28. Kickstart Installations
302
raid swap --fstype swap --device md2 --level=RAID1 raid.13 raid.23
raid /usr --fstype ext3 --device md3 --level=RAID1 raid.14 raid.24
raid pv.01 --fstype ext3 --device md4 --level=RAID1 raid.15 raid.25
# LVM configuration so that we can resize /var and /usr/local later
volgroup sysvg pv.01
logvol /var --vgname=sysvg --size=8000 --name=var
logvol /var/freespace --vgname=sysvg --size=8000
--name=freespacetouse
logvol /usr/local --vgname=sysvg --size=1 --grow --name=usrlocal
This advanced example implements LVM over RAID, as well as the ability to resize various
directories for future growth.