Table of Contents
Cobbler a Vagrant alternative
Kickstart files can be kept on a single server system and read by individual computers during the installation. This installation method can support the use of a single kickstart file to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux on multiple machines.
Install an Configuration Cobbler
The following are potential configuration items that you may want to fix:
1 : The 'server' field in /etc/cobbler/settings must be set to something other than localhost, or kickstarting features will not work. This should be a resolvable hostname or IP for the boot server as reachable by all machines that will use it.
2 : For PXE to be functional, the 'next_server' field in /etc/cobbler/settings must be set to something other than 127.0.0.1, and should match the IP of the boot server on the PXE network.
3 : SELinux is enabled. Please review the following wiki page for details on ensuring cobbler works correctly in your SELinux environment:
https://github.com/cobbler/cobbler/wiki/Selinux
4 : missing /etc/xinetd.d/tftp, install tftp-server?
5 : missing configuration file: /etc/xinetd.d/tftp
6 : some network boot-loaders are missing from /var/lib/cobbler/loaders, you may run 'cobbler get-loaders' to download them, or, if you only want to handle x86/x86_64 netbooting, you may ensure that you have installed a *recent* version of the syslinux package installed and can ignore this message entirely. Files in this directory, should you want to support all architectures, should include pxelinux.0, menu.c32, elilo.efi, and yaboot. The 'cobbler get-loaders' command is the easiest way to resolve these requirements.
7 : file /etc/xinetd.d/rsync does not exist
8 : debmirror package is not installed, it will be required to manage debian deployments and repositories
9 : The default password used by the sample templates for newly installed machines (default_password_crypted in /etc/cobbler/settings) is still set to 'cobbler' and should be changed, try: "openssl passwd -1 -salt 'random-phrase-here' 'your-password-here'" to generate new one
Create Instance
Prepare Repos
mount -o loop Fedora-18-x86_64-DVD.iso /mnt cobbler import --path=/mnt --name=fedora18 –arch=x86_64
cobbler repo add --name fedora20-everything-x86_64 --mirror=http://mirror2.hs-esslingen.de/fedora/linux/releases/20/Everything/x86_64/os --mirror-locally=N ... cobbler reposync
cobbler profile add --name=fedora20-x86_64-kvm_qcow2 \ --distro=Fedora-20-x86_64 \ --virt-disk-driver=qcow2 \ --virt-type=kvm \ --virt-path=/mnt/nfv/cobbler_ws/instances/ cobbler system add --name=fedora20-x86_64-java_dev \ --profile=fedora20-x86_64-kvm_qcow2 \ --virt-ram=4096 \ --firt-file-size=300 \ --virt-cpus=2
koan ...
cobbler system edit --name=fedora20-x86_64-java_dev \
--virt-bridge=kvmbr0 \
--interface=eth0 \
1. Troubleshooting
1.1 cobbler command
[root@compass-cobbler /]# view /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/01-00-00-c6-eb-f3-37 [root@compass-cobbler /]# view /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/01-00-00-c6-eb-f3-37 [root@compass-cobbler /]# view /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/ 01-00-00-7c-40-15-46 01-00-00-c6-eb-f3-37 default [root@compass-cobbler /]# view /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default [root@compass-cobbler /]# view /var/lib/tftpboot/ boot/ etc/ grub/ images/ images2/ memdisk menu.c32 ppc/ pxelinux.0 pxelinux.cfg/ s390x/ [root@compass-cobbler /]# cobbler system list host1 host2 [root@compass-cobbler /]# cobber system --help bash: cobber: command not found [root@compass-cobbler /]# man cobbler bash: man: command not found [root@compass-cobbler /]# man cobbler bash: man: command not found [root@compass-cobbler /]# cobbler system --help usage ===== cobbler system add cobbler system copy cobbler system dumpvars cobbler system edit cobbler system find cobbler system getks cobbler system list cobbler system poweroff cobbler system poweron cobbler system powerstatus cobbler system reboot cobbler system remove cobbler system rename cobbler system report [root@compass-cobbler /]# cobbler system dumpvars host1 --name is required [root@compass-cobbler /]# cobbler system dumpvars --name host1
Installation status
[root@compass-cobbler /]# cobbler status ip |target |start |state 10.1.0.4 |system:host1 |Sat Dec 29 07:24:37 2018|installing (71m 11s) 10.1.0.5 |system:host2 |Fri Dec 28 20:05:58 2018|finished
parnurzeal, cobbler status working mechanism is very simple: a pre-install trigger (cobbler.modules.install_pre_log Python module) and a post-install trigger (cobbler.modules.install_post_log Python module) write to '/var/log/cobbler/install.log' when OS installation begins and ends. cobbler status simply uses the content of this file to generate output. The post-install trigger is started when http://<cobbler_server>/cblr/svc/op/trig/mode/post/system/<system_name> URL is called by the system being provisioned. This URL call in turn exists in kickstart_done snippet, which should be included by all kickstart templates.
The timestamps for start / end in /var/log/cobbler/install.log are Unix timestamps. To read them:
[root@compass-cobbler /]# view /var/log/cobbler/install.log
system host1 10.1.0.4 start 1546027549.45
system host2 10.1.0.5 start 1546027558.08
system host1 10.1.0.4 start 1546040614.42
system host1 10.1.0.4 start 1546043133.58
system host2 10.1.0.5 stop 1546053911.56
system host1 10.1.0.4 start 1546068277.18
pyhton
>>> import datetime
>>> timestamp = 1546053911.56
>>> ts = int("1546053911")
>>> print(datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(ts).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
2018-12-29 04:25:11
>>> ts = int("1546027558")
>>> print(datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(ts).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
2018-12-28 21:05:58
--> 7 hours installation! with qemu
