Thank you for everyone's help. I understand cobbler better now and can now do what I want with some scripts. I don't know why I had such a difficult time understanding the difference between an "install tree" and a "distribution". I also was curious on why vmlinuz & initrd had to be local (or seem to be local via NFS). I understand now, thank you all.
To summarize: (1) vmlinuz & initrd have to appear local because in.tftpd demands it. (2) An "install tree" is the root directory of an expanded .iso file - i.e., CentOS-5.3-x86_64-bin-DVD.iso; The contents are what you feed to "url --url=http://foo"; in kickstart, that is the tree. (3) A "distribution" includes vmlinuz & initrd and other metadata (i.e., --ksmeta) which may point to the "install tree". A "distribution" in cobbler terminology, includes the install tree. I think. ;-) Paul On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 3:03 AM, Robert Knight<[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I see value in supporting the following: >> # cobbler distro add --kernel=http://path/to/vmlinuz >> --initrd=http://path/to/initrd.img --name=foo >> >> This command would copy vmlinuz and initrd.img in the correct places >> under /tftpboot making them available for PXE booting. >> It would allow people to use machines on the Internet (via http) >> instead of being forced to copy things locally (via NFS or other >> means). > I believe that you are asking for a change in the semantics of cobbler > distro add (or perhaps cobbler import). Changing command semantics > usually has unexpected results. > > I've recently found that I want to do the same thing and that the > following works: > > 1. Copy the kernel and initrd to some place local with, say, wget. > 2. Define the distribution with a command pointing to the local files > and add a ksmeta defining the tree at the http location. > > Now, this is a (slight) abuse of the machinery, but will get the job > done without copying more than you need locally. > > I hope this is helpful. > > On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 16:00:41, Paul Company <[email protected]> wrote: >> On the "how something works" front: >> I see value in supporting the following: >> # cobbler distro add --kernel=http://path/to/vmlinuz >> --initrd=http://path/to/initrd.img --name=foo >> >> This command would copy vmlinuz and initrd.img in the correct places >> under /tftpboot making them available for PXE booting. >> It would allow people to use machines on the Internet (via http) >> instead of being forced to copy things locally (via NFS or other >> means). Have you ever tried to NFS mount something from a remote >> machine on the Internet? Doesn't work. >> >> ON the "what to do" front: >> I currently have this issue at work, where our distros (vmlinuz & >> initrd.img) are available via http but they are not available via NFS >> (and will never be). > > _______________________________________________ > cobbler mailing list > [email protected] > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler > _______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list [email protected] https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
