In the previous post we added the updates and fedora repositories to our kickstart file. That should mean the packages are pulled down from the Internet if they can’t be found on the install media (those in the “url” statement).

When I first tried this on my home installation, I was still getting the errors about being unable to find some software packages. A look on the install consoles (ALT+F1,F2,F3, etc.) showed the repositories were being disabled for fedora and updates. Initially I couldn’t figure out why. Then it dawned on me. I was using a temporary DHCP server on a Centos 6 provisioning host, and my options were as follows:


option space PXE;
option PXE.mtftp-ip code 1 = ip-address;
option PXE.mtftp-cport code 2 = unsigned integer 16;
option PXE.mtftp-sport code 3 = unsigned integer 16;
option PXE.mtftp-tmout code 4 = unsigned integer 8;
option PXE.mtftp-delay code 5 = unsigned integer 8;
option arch code 93 = unsigned integer 16; # RFC4578
deny unknown-clients;
subnet 192.168.105.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
option routers 192.168.105.1;
range 192.168.105.200 192.168.105.240;


Note that my DHCP server wasn’t returning any DNS servers as my client booted. As such, when the Fedora install started it had no concept of DNS servers to use.  So, I added the line below so that my Fedora install would use the Google public DNS servers (you could replace this with your own DNS servers or that of your ISP):


option domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8;


The installer was now able to use the fedora and updates repositories to pull down the required packages.

Lesson learnt: make sure that you supply a valid DNS server on your clients when using the kickstart file.

I recently decided to re-install Fedora19 on my Thinkpad W530. I thought it would be worthwhile documenting the steps and using a kickstart server (in this case running Centos 6) to be able to replicate the build in the future – for example when Fedora 20 is released – and for kickstarting other devices. Sure, it’s now possible to upgrade Fedora between releases using FedUp, but if all of your personal data is on a separate (backed up) partition then a clean, custom install will give you a fresh start and make sure no old configuration files or packages are left behind.  If you document your customisations via a kickstart file, it means the headaches of the re-install can be minimal.  In fact, everything you would do on the command line post-install can be done via a kickstart file.  Another advantage is that should a newer filesystem type come along you can simply reformat your O/S partition to this new type.

The next couple of posts will document some of the steps in creating the kickstart file and will cover:

Fedora Kickstart – Installation Sources
Fedora Kickstart – DNS Dependences
Fedora Kickstart – Ultra Minimal KDE Installation
Fedora Kickstart – Additional Repositories
Fedora Kickstart – Thinkpad W530 add-ons
Fedora Kickstart – Post-Installation Tasks

To begin this process, I first installed Fedora 19 by hand and chose minimal as the default installation. This gave me a /root/anaconda-ks.cfg kickstart file from which we can work.

It will look something like this:


#version=DEVEL
# System authorization information
auth --enableshadow --passalgo=sha512
# Use network installation
url --url="http://192.168.105.1/os/fedora/19/Fedora-19-x86_64-DVD"
# Run the Setup Agent on first boot
firstboot --enable
ignoredisk --only-use=sda
# Keyboard layouts
# old format: keyboard us
# new format:
keyboard --vckeymap=us --xlayouts='us'
# System language
lang en_GB.UTF-8
# Network information
network --bootproto=dhcp --device=eth0 --noipv6 --activate
network --hostname=localhost.localdomain
# Root password
rootpw --iscrypted XXX
# System timezone
timezone Europe/London
user --groups=wheel --homedir=/home/user --name=user --password=XXX "User"
# System bootloader configuration
bootloader --location=mbr --boot-drive=sda
# Partition clearing information
clearpart --none --initlabel
# Disk partitioning information
part /boot --fstype="ext4" --onpart=sda6 --label=fedora19-boot
part / --fstype="ext4" --onpart=sda7 --label=fedora19-root
part swap --fstype="swap" --noformat --onpart=sda8
part /boot/efi --fstype="efi" --noformat --onpart=sda2 --fsoptions="umask=0077,shortname=winnt"
%packages
@core
%end


For clarity, the ‘url’ shown above would refer to an internal apache webserver from which the Fedora DVD is shared.

Whilst the final kickstart file won’t be for everyone, I’ve called it the ‘Ultimate Fedora Kickstart‘ because it’s the ultimate for my needs. No doubt, you’ll have your own version of this 🙂

Here’s a quick and easy way to establish what the date will be in a specific number of days from today using the bash shell on Linux. Simply use the ‘-d’ option to the ‘date’ command.

Here’s the current timestamp:

-bash-3.2$ date
Thu Jan 17 15:04:28 GMT 2013

And this will be the date 60 days from now:

-bash-3.2$ date -d "now 60 days"
Mon Mar 18 15:04:31 GMT 2013

You can also use the same code to display dates from past. What was the date 94 days ago?

-bash-3.2$ date -d "now -94 days"
Mon Oct 15 15:07:35 GMT 2012

To get the last calendar day of the previous month:

date -d "-$(date +%d) day" +%Y-%m-%d

(Display the date days ago. So on 17 January, 17 days ago would be 31 December)