Starting A Kickstart Installation - Red Hat LINUX 7.2 - OFFICIAL LINUX CUSTOMIZATION GUIDE Manual

Section 1.3:Starting a Kickstart Installation
If the filename returned by the BOOTP/DHCP server ends with a slash ("/"), then it is interpreted as
a path only. In this case, the client system mounts that path using NFS, and searches for a particular
file. The filename the client searches for is:
<ip-addr> -kickstart
The <ip-addr> section of the filename should be replaced with the client's IP address in dotted
decimal notation. For example, the filename for a computer with an IP address of 10.10.0.1 would be
10.10.0.1-kickstart.
Note that if you don't specify a server name, then the client system will attempt to use the server that
answered the BOOTP/DHCP request as its NFS server. If you don't specify a path or filename, the
client system will try to mount /kickstart from the BOOTP/DHCP server, and will try to find the
kickstart file using the same <ip-addr> -kickstart filename as described above.

1.3 Starting a Kickstart Installation

To begin a kickstart installation, you must boot the system from a Red Hat Linux boot diskette or the
CD-ROM and enter a special boot command at the boot prompt. If the kickstart file is located on a
boot diskette that was created from the boot.img or bootnet.img image file, the correct boot
command would be:
boot: linux ks=floppy
The linux ks=floppy command also works if the ks.cfg file is located on a vfat filesystem on
a floppy diskette and you boot from the Red Hat Linux CD-ROM.
An alternate boot command for booting off the Red Hat Linux CD-ROM and having the kickstart file
on a vfat filesystem on a floppy diskette is:
boot: linux ks=hd:fd0/ks.cfg
If you need to use a driver disk with kickstart, you can still have the kickstart file on a floppy disk:
boot: linux ks=floppy dd
The Red Hat Linux installation program looks for a kickstart file if the ks command line argument is
passed to the kernel. The command line argument can take a number of forms:
ks=nfs: <server>: / <path>
The installation program will look for the kickstart file on the NFS server <server>, as file
<path>. The installation program will use 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.
ks=http: <server>: / <path>
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