Making The Installation Tree Available; Starting A Kickstart Installation - Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 4 System Administration Manual

1.9. Making the Installation Tree Available

The kickstart installation must access an installation tree. An installation tree is a copy of the binary
Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROMs with the same directory structure.
If you are performing a CD-based installation, insert the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROM #1 into the
computer before starting the kickstart installation.
If you are performing a hard drive installation, make sure the ISO images of the binary Red Hat
Enterprise Linux CD-ROMs are on a hard drive in the computer.
If you are performing a network-based (NFS, FTP, or HTTP) installation, you must make the
installation tree available over the network. Refer to the Preparing for a Network Installation section of
the Installation Guide for details.

1.10. Starting a Kickstart Installation

To begin a kickstart installation, you must boot the system from boot media you have made or the
Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROM #1, and enter a special boot command at the boot prompt. The
installation program looks for a kickstart file if the ks command line argument is passed to the kernel.
CD-ROM #1 and Diskette
The linux ks=floppy command also works if the ks.cfg file is located on a vfat or ext2 file
system on a diskette and you boot from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROM #1.
An alternate boot command is to boot off the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD-ROM #1 and have the
kickstart file on a vfat or ext2 file system on a diskette. To do so, enter the following command at
the boot: prompt:
linux ks=hd:fd0:/ks.cfg
With Driver Disk
If you need to use a driver disk with kickstart, specify the dd option as well. For example, to boot
off a boot diskette and use a driver disk, enter the following command at the boot: prompt:
linux ks=floppy dd
Boot CD-ROM
If the kickstart file is on a boot CD-ROM as described in
Media", insert the CD-ROM into the system, boot the system, and enter the following command at
the boot: prompt (where ks.cfg is the name of the kickstart file):
linux ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg
Other options to start a kickstart installation are as follows:
ks=nfs:<server>:/<path>
The installation program looks for the kickstart file on the NFS server <server>, as file <path>.
The installation program uses DHCP to configure the Ethernet card. For example, if your NFS
server is server.example.com and the kickstart file is in the NFS share /mydir/ks.cfg, the
correct boot command would be ks=nfs:server.example.com:/mydir/ks.cfg.
Making the Installation Tree Available
Section 1.8.1, "Creating Kickstart Boot
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