Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5.5 - TECHNICAL NOTES Manual page 17

• previously, when installing on IBM System z systems, anaconda assumed that the network gateway
was unreachable if its attempt to ping the gateway timed out after 10 seconds. Anaconda would
then prompt the user to select a gateway. However, if IPADDR in the conf file has changed recently,
network interfaces take longer to respond. Anaconda now prompts the user only when three pings
have failed and therefore avoids prompting the user for gateway information that is already correctly
specified in the conf file.
In addition, this updated package provides the following enhancements:
• after transferring installation files to a z/VM guest, a user must execute a series of Conversational
Monitor System (CMS) commands to IPL the zLinux installation. These commands can be
scripted, but no such script was previously included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The lack of
a readymade script made installation more difficult for users unfamiliar with CMS commands. The
CMS script for starting the install process on z/VM is now included in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
images, simplifying installation.
• anaconda now loads the Brocade BNA Ethernet Controller driver, and supports Brocade Fibre
Channel to PCIe Host Bus Adapters.
• previously, anaconda did not offer users the opportunity to configure NFS options during interactive
installation (although these could be configured in kickstart files). Users who needed to fine-tune
NFS parameters for installation were therefore forced to run an unattended installation. Now,
anaconda presents users who select NFS installation with a dialog in which they can configure NFS
options to suit their needs.
• previously, it was not possible to configure hypervisor parameters during a kickstart installation. As
a result, users needed to specify hypervisor parameters manually after installation, negating the
usefulness of kickstart as as a mechanism for unattended installations. Now, anaconda recognizes
a new kickstart option, --hvargs and sets Hypervisor parameters accordingly.
• previouisly, during a kickstart installation when multiple multipath LUNs were available, anaconda
would automatically choose the LUN with the lowest ID number for the root device. Users had no
ready way to customize this behavior. Now, anaconda supports a multipath kickstart command
with --name and --device options that allow users to specify a LUN for root.
• anaconda can retrieve kickstart files from FTP servers. Previously, however, anaconda did not
support users specifying authentication credentials to access an FTP server. Therefore, if access
to the server were protected by a passphrase, anaconda could not retrieve the kickstart file.
Now, when specifying the location of a kickstart file with the ks= boot option, users can provide a
passphrase to allow anaconda to retrieve the kickstart files fom a protected server.
• previously, troubleshooting errors that occurred while running %pre and %post kickstart scriptlets
was very difficult because anaconda did not log the behavior of these scriptlets. Anaconda now
copies %pre and %post kickstart scriptlets to /tmp together with a log. These records make
troubleshooting kickstart installations easier.
• Reipl is a kernel feature that instructs IBM System z systems where to boot next, as these systems
do not have a default boot location. Anaconda did not previously support Reipl, which meant
that during installation, users had to specify a boot location manually between different phases
of the installation. Anaconda now supports Reipl, so these reboots can happen automatically.
42
(BZ#512195 )
34
(BZ#506742 )
35
(BZ#475343 )
(BZ#475707
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(BZ#493052 )
(BZ#510636
RHBA-2010:0194: bug fix and enhancement update
36
)
41
)
38
(BZ#501438 )
39
(BZ#502768 )
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(BZ#505424 )
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