Kickstart Installations; What Are Kickstart Installations; How Do You Perform A Kickstart Installation; Creating The Kickstart File - Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 4 System Administration Manual

Chapter 1.

Kickstart Installations

1.1. What are Kickstart Installations?

Many system administrators would prefer to use an automated installation method to install Red Hat
Enterprise Linux on their machines. To answer this need, Red Hat, Inc created the kickstart installation
method. Using kickstart, a system administrator can create a single file containing the answers to all
the questions that would normally be asked during a typical installation.
Kickstart files can be kept on a single server system and read by individual computers during the
installation. This installation method can support the use of a single kickstart file to install Red Hat
Enterprise Linux on multiple machines, making it ideal for network and system administrators.
Kickstart provides a way for users to automate a Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation.

1.2. How Do You Perform a Kickstart Installation?

Kickstart installations can be performed using a local CD-ROM, a local hard drive, or via NFS, FTP, or
HTTP.
To use kickstart, you must:
1. Create a kickstart file.
2. Create a boot media with the kickstart file or make the kickstart file available on the network.
3. Make the installation tree available.
4. Start the kickstart installation.
This chapter explains these steps in detail.

1.3. Creating the Kickstart File

The kickstart file is a simple text file, containing a list of items, each identified by a keyword. You
can create it by editing a copy of the sample.ks file found in the RH-DOCS directory of the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux Documentation CD, using the Kickstart Configurator application, or writing it from
scratch. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation program also creates a sample kickstart file based
on the options that you selected during installation. It is written to the file /root/anaconda-ks.cfg.
You should be able to edit it with any text editor or word processor that can save files as ASCII text.
First, be aware of the following issues when you are creating your kickstart file:
• Sections must be specified in order. Items within the sections do not have to be in a specific order
unless otherwise specified. The section order is:
• Command section — Refer to
must include the required options.
• The %packages section — Refer to
• The %pre and %post sections — These two sections can be in any order and are not required.
Section 1.6, "Pre-installation Script"
Refer to
Section 1.4, "Kickstart Options"
Section 1.5, "Package Selection"
Section 1.7, "Post-installation Script"
and
for a list of kickstart options. You
for details.
for details.
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