On 09/26/2014 01:29 PM, Will Dennis wrote:
Hi Nish,
Yes, you are correct, the install does blow up in the Ubuntu installer, but
it's because the installer is looking for a preseed file... This is driven by
the kernel append options that Cobbler is providing. I did a Wireshark packet
capture of the PXE netboot process, and the interesting bit is the boot menu
that Cobbler send to the client:
=====
..tsize.2026.blksize.1380.........
DEFAULT menu
PROMPT 0
MENU TITLE Cobbler | http://www.cobblerd.org/
TIMEOUT 200
TOTALTIMEOUT 6000
ONTIMEOUT local
LABEL local
MENU LABEL (local)
MENU DEFAULT
LOCALBOOT -1
[...redacted...]
LABEL ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64
kernel /images/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64/linux
MENU LABEL ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64
append initrd=/images/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64/initrd.gz ksdevice=bootif
lang=
ks=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64 text
auto-install/enable=true priority=critical
url=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64
hostname=ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x8664 domain=local.lan suite=trusty
ipappend 2
LABEL ubuntu1404svr-x86_64
kernel /images/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64/linux
MENU LABEL ubuntu1404svr-x86_64
append initrd=/images/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64/initrd.gz ksdevice=bootif
lang= text auto-install/enable=true priority=critical
url=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64
hostname=ubuntu1404svr-x8664 domain=local.lan suite=trusty
ipappend 2
MENU end
....
=====
The "ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64" option is the one I'm using. For comparison, the " ubuntu1404svr-x86_64"
one is the "plain vanilla" one that Cobbler made when I imported the ISO. On the
"ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64" one I added the following to the "Kernel Options" field in cobbler-web:
ks=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64
As you can see, it has inserted this in the append line, but kept the rest of the line beginning with "
text auto-install/enable=true [...]", which is what makes the installer look for a preseed file, and
which is handing it the kickstart file in the "
url=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-x86_64"; bit of the append line. Since that
is not a valid Debian preseed format file, the installer rightly chokes on it, and blows up with the
"installer failed to process the preconfiguration file" message.
So as a test, I PXE-booted the client machine again, selected the
"ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64" menu option from the Cobbler menu, hit [Tab] to
edit the line, and removed the following from the append line:
text auto-install/enable=true priority=critical
url=http://192.168.1.150/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x86_64
hostname=ubuntu1404svr-am-asi-x8664 domain=local.lan suite=trusty
Then hit Enter, and the installer took off and processed the kickstart file correctly (as
it does when I use my USB key with the kickstart on it.) Interestingly enough, it names
the node's hostname "kickseed" :) It did format and partition the disk
correctly as per the kickstart directives, etc.
So, again, I believe the profile breed type of "ubuntu" is driving the way that
Cobbler forms the append line. (Can Jörgen or someone else who knows the code confirm?)
What I'd like to see is an option to tell Cobbler to use kickstart instead of preseed for
Ubuntu nodes, and form the append line correctly for that option... (If only I could code
to the level of Cobbler, I'd jump in and make a patch!)
Hi, Will, I am a Cobbler developer. Thank you for the feedback.
Yes, Cobbler assumes that Debian installations use preseed and
automatically adds some
d-i-specific kernel options to installation kernel command line. This
seems easy to fix and I
can do it if Jörgen agrees in adding kickstart support in Ubuntu
installations.
Regards,
Alan Evangelista
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