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HOWTO: How to create mini
kickstart CD for FC3
2005-05-06 Posted by Thomas Chung

Kickstart is an automated installation method integrated with Anaconda which is The Red Hat
Installation Program for Red Hat Linux distributions. These distributions
include both Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 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.

In this article, I will discuss how we can create a bootable Kickstart CD
with mininum packages for FC3. Since this is a “base” only installation, it will
not install any X Desktop Environment nor any Graphical Configuration Tools.
This will be a perfect environment for learning Linux or a quick setup for a
working Linux box in less than 5 minutes. Well, OK 10 minutes if you don’t have
High Speed Internet Connection.

Warning

This CD will erase existing partitions and format your hard drive
without any noitice.
Please use it on your test system before using it
on your production system.

Let’s start. First create a working directory called “minikick”

$ mkdir minikick
$ cd minikick

Then download a small boot.iso from http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/os/images/

$ wget http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/os/images/boot.iso

Mount it as a local loop file system.

$ mkdir boot
$ sudo mount -o loop boot.iso boot

Create image directory and copy boot/isolinux directory to image directory
and set permission so you can update them later.

$ mkdir image
$ cp -a boot/isolinux image
$ chmod 644 image/isolinux/*
$ sudo umount boot

Download customized isolinux.cfg and
snake.msg to
replace them in image/isolinux directory.

$ wget http://fedoranews.org/tchung/minikick/isolinux.cfg
$ wget http://fedoranews.org/tchung/minikick/snake.msg
$ mv isolinux.cfg snake.msg image/isolinux

Download following custom kickstart script
and place it in image directory.

$ wget http://fedoranews.org/tchung/minikick/ks.cfg
$ mv ks.cfg image

Now, we are ready to create an ISO image and burn it on CD-R.

$ mkisofs -J -R -v -T -V MiniKick -o minikick.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table image
$ cdrecord -v -sao -eject speed=24 dev=/dev/hdd driveropts=burnfree minikick.iso

Please subsitute with your CD-R speed and device. (See /etc/fstab)

Note

Default root password in this custom kickstart installation is
“minikick”

References:
Anaconda Project -
http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/anaconda-installer/
Anaconda Mailing
List http://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/anaconda-devel-list
Kickstart
Mailing List - http://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
Kickstart
Options - http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/sysadmin-guide/s1-kickstart2-options.html

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