Hello,
I'm in the process of migrating xCAT 2.16 CentOS 8.3 (x86_64) stateless
and stateful installs to RHEL 8.4 (x86_64) stateless and stateful
installs using RedHat Satellite 6.9 because of the CentOS new
positionning in RH lifecyle
RH Satellite will be used basically to provide repos to hosts, I'm not,
for now, planning to use any other features
This new paradigm implies two major changes:
# hosts have to be registered to access repos
As a matter of fact it is the registration process which configures
client SSL certs and the redhat.repo file
-> this one is not a problem as register is in my case performed by
ansible after node initial install and I'm using Simple Content Access
Note:
I managed though, as a proof of concept, to make it possible to register
either in %pre or %post kickstart section.
# xCAT stateful installs (kickstart)
I still want xCAT to manage DHCP,PXE,DNS...so stateful install as well
-> does anyone has any hint/experience about this one when using a RH
Satellite ?
As a matter of fact I did encounter issues with the points described below.
Note:
The standard method (point pkgdir to the content of an RHEL DVD iso) and
register later still works but I thought it would be nice to better
integrate with Satellite from the start, meaning using repos from inside
Satellite to perform the install, not installing with DVD repos then
register and point/use other repos (which are Satellite configured
content views). Or at least install from some repos inside Satellite,
register then point/use Content view repos
1) xCAT (pkgdir=) is meant to deal with ISO content accessible via some
fs mountpoint, my understanding is that it cannot point to some http URL
and that xCAT looks for kernel/initrd to be served by PXE in that same
location. Besides, xCAT sets up inst.repo= to this location as well
-> this could be manually worked around by commenting out %include
/tmp/repos and stating an url --url directive instead and by overwriting
inst.repo= in the iPXE xnba script file (/tftp/xcat/xnba/nodes/<node>)
This is not practical though as nodeset would override the latter
2) Satellite RH BaseOS and Appstream repos, stored in a "Content View"
require registration to be accessed
-> this could be worked around in 2 ways:
a) by registering in %pre ks section
b) by using (trying to use) what Satellite calls "kickstart repos"
So my first idea was to try to use RH BOOT.iso bootnet only (no rpms)
image with xCAT which would be pointed BaseOS/AppStream repos in a
Satellite Content View while registering in %pre
-> this failed because the inst.repo/url --url combination basically
made it mandatory to use DVD.iso in order for Anaconda either to start
or to have a non-interactive source install set up
My second idea was to try to use Satellite kickstart repos, which are
accessible by HTTP without SSL client certs, but again:
a) xCAT still have to have kernel/initrd to serve via iPXE: which one
would fit ?
b) those repos are just repos and thus does not match the layout of the
root of the DVD for instance (they're more like the inidivual BaseOS and
AppStream repos once you're cd inside them). Anaconda still have to be
found somewhere.
Besides, my understanding is that in order to natively (the Satellite
way) kickstart against kickstart repos, one have to somehow create a
host and use the Satellite generated boot media (using in particular
Satellite generated kernel/initrd)
My guess is that it would be feasible to generate such a boot media iso
inside Satellite, download it and point xCAT to its content with
pkgdir=, just as I did with DVD.iso
In short: what would be the best way to use xCAT and Satellite for a
stateful install ?
Thanks for you help
--
Thomas HUMMEL
_______________________________________________
xCAT-user mailing list
xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user
