Creating a boot image that is using a remote kickstart file to install Red Hat Creating a boot image that is using a remote kickstart file to install Red Hat. With UEFI boot, Red Hat 7, and HP ILO 4 things became way too complex. The traditional BIOS can only boot from drives of 2.1 TB or less. If you have drives larger then that your only option is UEFI.
Other then that you can simplify you life sticking to traditional BIOS, unless you use some fancy options and UEFI provide advantages in this area. There is no free lunch. While a more capable booting system, UEFI introduces additional complexity including, but not limited to, a special 200MB UEFI partition which should be formatted as FAT. That's throws a monkey wrench into some operations related to kickstart, specifically to the modification of ISO disk to include reference to remote kickstart file in the boot menu. This is not fatal, but still if can aviod those troubles you should.
Also incase of UEFI boot manager installed in the boot partition, but most server hardware is able to deal with this non-standard situation and boot correctly even if boot loader is located incorrectly. RHEL 7 is another story of adding complexity to already very complex system. For booting, most of this complexity is related to use of systemd instead of initd and replated changes of how you work with networking.
'What if we just don't do any of that bullshit?' Is indeed a great question to ask in this case. May be you need to simplify a system not to make it more complex. Combination of several complex, poorly understood (due to excessive complexity and the fact that installation represents only a tiny chunk of sysadmin workload) subsystems lead to the situation when everything became kind of brittle as in 'one step left or one step right and guards shout without warning'. Kind of electronic gulag for system administrators;-). In other words, when you are using Kickstart for servers with UEFI boot, you are walking of eggshells.
That actually means that for servers that still have disks less then 2TB good old MBR might still be a better option;-). What is interesting that with identical blades and identical kickstart files RHEL 6.9 Anaconda it gave me several different error messages during the installation. Also it does not like hard drive that was not initialized and asks for confirmation. That can be suppressed via option -initlabel in clearpart statement of you ks.cfg. Kickstart used to work pretty well probably up to RHEL 6.5. Not any more. The key idea for using kickstart for unattended installation of multiple severs is creating modified boot image of RHEL which included modified isolinux.cfg.
Which in turn specify the location of the kickstart file and the necessary network information. It should be simple and well documented. But it is neither. And recently I need to install Red Hat on 12 servers and I spend more than 20 hours trying to make it work on RHEL 6.8, which helped slight improve this page (note this was not even 7.x with its own set of warts;-). If I just did it manually I probably could save half of this time, doing several installations in parallel;-). Of course HP hardware presents its own can of worms, but I digress.
In any case the best way to access kickstart file is to put it on HTTP server, if you know this staff. If not then NFS is another option. After that comes FTP. Preliminary steps. Install the required packages to create ISO9660 images, as follows: yum install -y genisoimage. Mount the boot image mount -o loop /path/to/rhel-server-boot-image.iso /mnt. Copy the required files preserving attributed STEP 1: First you need to modify specific line in the fist (default) item of boot menu in isolinux.cfg Modify append line in the first section of boot option in the isolinux.cfg file assign as a minimum location of ks.cfg on HTTP server and what Ethernet interface should be used (servers usually have multiple Ethernet interfaces.
Two ports are minimal. For posts are common. In case of static IP you need also provide the usual troika ( IP/netmask/default router).
If the segment uses DHCP you task is easier. Append initrd=initrd.img ksdevice=eth0 ip=dhcp ks=.
If you use static IP this static IP should be 'unused' (and not in range of IPs of servers that you plan to install iether above or blow this range). And you need to specify netmask and gateway as well.
Append initrd=initrd.img ksdevice=eth0 ks= ip=10.10.10.10 gateway=10.10.254.254 netmask=255.255.0.0 STEP 2: You need to verify the files on you HTTP sever has right permission and are assessable. For DVD files you can crease directory (for example called) called ISO and mount ISO image on it. If this is directory from Webserver root you need to reference is as http:/10/10.10.11/ISO in your kickstart file. You can check if the path is correct from the browser.
Files on the ISO should be visible. Your kickstart file should be viewable from the Web browser, if you type appropriate URL. Check it before you you proceed.
STEP 3: You need to modify your prototype kickstart file obtained from the server. Kickstart file generated by anaconda for your first server (the one that you installed manually) has directives for creating partitions commented out.
You need to uncomment and correct them. If you if you use UEFI the directive generated by Anaconda will no create the partition.
It assumed that it already exists. You need to correct the definition of this partition specifying size 200 MB for it. Provide the location of your installation media ( that should be done for the right Ethernet interface, but we are assuming that your kickstart file comes from the first manual install of a group of identical (or mostly identical) severs, that's given). For segments without DHCP you need to provide IP/netmask/default gateway information in specific line or if DHCP is available on this segment specify DHCP. STEP 4: Verify parts of kickstart file using Kickstart Configurator and, if necessary make some corrections. Please note that Kickstart Configurator is completely broken and after you load your kickstart file into it will never produce correct modified file.
But some sections of generated file can be re-used to modify your initial file ks.cfg file manually. One useful feature is more precise selection of packages. If you experience errors, of if it crashes when you attempt to save file you can try first to preview you modified kickstart file and then save it. Sometimes this work. If not you can select all area in preview using Ctrl-A and copy it to your text editor window. See STEP 5: Put back the modified file in image and test resulting image. It should be bootable.
Recently this part became most difficult part due to existence of UEFI boot partition If you work via VPN and do not have Advanced license on HP server (you can get trial licence for 30 days from HP for free; that's usually enough for initial installation of OS) further minimization of image can be important for you. You can copy only /isolinux folder.
It is enough for this purpose. For example mkdir -p /root/iso cp -r /mnt/isolinux /root/iso umount /mnt. You can minimize boot menu to just two items, deleting the rest. This does not make much sense, but there is such possibility if you like to experiment:-) The content above the first label linux statement is not critical to the task in hand. Rm -f /root/iso/isolinux/isolinux.cfg The resulting 'tail' of 'standard' isolinux.cfg file might look as following' label linux menu label ^Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img ks=10.10.10.19/kickstart.ks ksdevice=eth0 ip=dhcp label local menu label Boot from ^local drive localboot 0xffff menu end Now we need to create the ISO. There are two different situations here. You use traditional BIOS.
In this case you just need to rebuild ISO using mkisofs cd /locationoffiletreecreatedfrombootcd # for example /svr/www/Boot mkisofs -o./myboot.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -J -R -V disks. Also works mkisofs -o./myboot.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -J -r. The resulting ISO image should be bootable and should pick up the necessary ks.cfg file. NOTE: mkisofs command in the form above is suitable only for legacy boot (MBR based) - it does not create UEFI boot partition in the following example.
As the result the resulting image will be much smaller then the original and will not boot:. You have UEFI BIOS. In case you server uses UEFI boot it is easier to said then done, because UEFI partition if FAT-based. Mkisofs -o /tmp/efiboot.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -eltorito-alt-boot -e images/efiboot.img -graftpoints EFI/BOOT=/mnt/EFI/BOOT images/efiboot.img=/mnt/images/efiboot.img -no-emul-boot -J -R -V disks. (assuming you boot image is mounted on /mnt ) After that you need to run isohybrid -uefi efiboot.iso Quoting from.
# cd /rhel # mkisofs -o /tmp/new.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -J -R -V disks. NOTE: In RHEL7, please make sure that you specify the volume id with -V option, and it's same as VolumeID in step 6.
Boot the machine from this ISO Kickstart has detailed documentation in the Important Note:. The image which will be created using the steps above won't be UEFI enabled. So to have an UEFI enabled image, use the following extra options. Isohybrid -uefi boot.iso.
You can also transfer the image to USB drive using dd, copy isolinux.cfg file of it and then try to recreate ISO image using dd. If you have software to manipulate writable CD/DVD you can copy the ISO to the DVD without finalizing and then add the file. But this truncated ISO image might still be bootable if your server has legacy boot option. More information on the options used with the mkisofs command can be found in the man pages for mkisofs(1). Google is also you friend but it does not provide useful references in this case. Opening Red hat ticket is another option and if you are perssisten anough they might even help, not just bounce you to some semi-useless documents that they found by searching their database for relevant keywords.
Here is an exchange from microsoft Technet forum that explains the problem: August 02, 2016 When it were true that a different USB stick was needed for different Bios, then the Windows Installation media could never boot on all Bios versions. Maybe you formatted the USB stick with NTFS?
On the page you linked: If your server platform supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), you should format the USB flash drive as FAT32 rather than as NTFS. To format the partition as FAT32, type format fs=fat32 quick, and then click ENTER. XXX Thanks, Ecki, that's exactly my point of view.
In the forum a user claimed that that'd be true for DVDs but not for USB sticks. Now I want to make sure.
And I want to make clear for every user out there that there is no peculiarity to UEFI except for a requirement of ' efi boot bootx64.efi' existing on the boot media. XXX From what I read (and from what I tested): UEFI can not boot from NTFS: XXX Last week I received a Microsoft OEM Windows 10 Recovery USB stick from HP. That stick is formatted in NTFS (hell knows why, as it doesn't work with UEFI).
- Go on high-speed chases through the skies and complete special helicopter missions that will require you to use of every last piece of equipment you have aboard the chopper! Conflict vietnam pc utorrent. - Individually customize your airplanes and helicopters and equip them with realistic weapons! Prepare for a mind-blowing flight simulation with exotic landscapes, detailed airplane models and challenging missions that will put your piloting skills to the ultimate test. - Let yourself be swept along by a captivating and emotional story and live through both heroic moments and the ugly side of war! KEY FEATURES - Experience fast-paced and explosive aerial combat above exotic jungle landscapes!
Trying to copy its contents to my USB stick (which I formatted FAT32) failed, because HP added a file larger than 4GB. Now this is really getting difficult. I guess I'll need to use now in order to create a USB Stick layout having two partitions: The Active one using FAT, containing just the NTFS drivers and the UEFI boot loader, and a second partition using NTFS containing the contents from the HP/Microsoft OEM Windows 10 Recovery USB stick. Did no one at Microsoft/HP think of testing their USB stick when buring data to it? Create bootable USB drives the easy way Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc.
It can be especially useful for cases where:. you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.). you need to work on a system that doesn't have an OS installed.
you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS. you want to run a low-level utility Despite its small size, Rufus provides everything you need! Oh, and Rufus is fast.
For instance it's about twice as fast as, or, on the creation of a Windows 7 USB installation drive from an ISO. It is also marginally faster on the creation of Linux bootable USB from ISOs. A non exhaustive list of Rufus supported ISOs is also provided at the bottom of this page.
# cd /rhel # mkisofs -o /tmp/new.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -J -R -V disks. NOTE: In RHEL7, please make sure that you specify the volume id with -V option, and it's same as VolumeID in step 6. Boot the machine from this ISO Kickstart has detailed documentation in the Important Note:. The image which will be created using the steps above won't be UEFI enabled.
So to have an UEFI enabled image, use the following extra options. Isohybrid -uefi boot.iso To use a Kickstart file to install a system:. Boot the system from a bootable medium or from a network installation server that supports PXE client installation. If you need to modify the boot command, press Esc to access the command line. Note, however, that the boot configuration might not allow you to modify the boot command.
For PXE clients, it is usual to specify the Kickstart parameters in the boot loader configuration. For example, the following example configures a Kickstart installation for a PXE client that boots using pxelinux: prompt 0 default ol6u6 timeout 0 label ol6u6 kernel vmlinuz-OL6u6 append initrd=initrd-OL6u6.img ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=The ksdevice=eth0 parameter specifies the interface to be used for network installation. If a system has multiple network interfaces, this prevents the installation from prompting you to choose an interface. Alternatively, you could specify ksdevice=bootif and add an ipappend 2 entry after the append entry: prompt 0 default ol6u6 timeout 0 label ol6u6 kernel vmlinuz-OL6u6 append initrd=initrd-OL6u6.img ksdevice=bootif kssendmac ks=ipappend 2 This configuration also prevents you from being prompted to choose a network interface but it does not control which interface is selected. The next example configures a Kickstart installation for a PXE client that boots using GRUB: default=0 hiddenmenu splashimage=(nd)/splash.xpm.gz timeout=0 title Oracle Linux 6 Update 6 Installation root (nd) kernel /vmlinuz-OL6u6 ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=initrd /initrd-OL6u6.img NOTE:.
If you have not customized the boot configuration to use Kickstart, you can use the ks option to specify the location of the Kickstart file. The following boot command specifies that the Kickstart file is on the boot CD: boot: linux ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg. If the Kickstart file is located on an NFS server, you might use a boot command such as the following: boot: linux ksdevice=eth0 ip=dhcp ks=nfs:10.0.0.11:/ksfiles/ks.cfg where ksdevice=eth0 specifies the network interface and ip=dhcp specifies that DHCP should be used to configure this interface.
For more information, see.
What's BOOTMGR? BOOTMGR stands for Windows Boot Manager. Beginning with Windows Vista and now standard in Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, BOOTMGR is used to find an active partition and display an operating system menu for your choice. It's similar to the NTLDR for the previous windows system like Windows XP and Windows 2000.
BOOTMGR is missing? The BOOTMGR is missing error is quite common in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Sometimes, when you press the Power button of your computer, you get a black screen saying ' BOOTMGR is missing, Press CTRL+ALT+D to restart.'
, but when you did as what you are suggested, the error appears again. This error happens even when you're installing another Windows 7 system to the existed ones.
Luckily, there's a method to repair this common headache. It's actually not as hard as you'd imagine repairing a 'BOOTMGR is missing' error, as long as you've got the right things prepared. To fix the 'BOOTMGR is missing' error is why this article comes in.
1How to Repair BOOTMGR Missing Error with CD/DVD Drive This method requires you to have Windows Installation DVD and a CD/DVD drive on your computer. First make sure your computer is booted up from CD/DVD drive and then follow the instructions below to repair this error. Don't have a Windows Installation DVD? Allows you to make a CD in 3 steps to boot up your computer and make windows recovery quickly. See how to use Windows CD to repair bootmgr error first. Insert your Windows Installation DVD disc, restart your computer and boot from CD/DVD drive. In the open screen, choose your preferred language, time currency and Keyboard.
Mouse over and click 0the 'Repair your computer.' Option in the bottom left side. Depending on what system(s) you have installed, Windows will try to locate the installation destination for Windows Vista or Windows 7.
Recovery Options will show up and click Startup Repair. A message 'Startup Repair is checking your system for problems.' When complete, you will be prompted to reboot, and you should eject the Windows Installation DVD from CD/DVD drive. Now your computer should run as normal, and you see your familiar desktop again.
2How to Repair BOOTMGR Missing Error with NO CD/DVD Drive The method above works well if you have a Windows Installation Disc and a CD/DVD drive. But what if you don't have a disc or CD/DVD drive?
As long as your computer has a USB port you can get a usb flash drive you can relax. Load your bootable USB with the LiveBoot program included in. See here how to make a bootable USB. Boot your computer using the USB, see the screenshot below. Once LiveBoot is open, go to Boot Crash Solution panel and follow the on-screen instructions to fix the ' BOOTMGR is missing' error.
Besides BOOTMGR errors, you can fix corrupt Master Boot Record (MBR), corrupt Hard Disk Partition Table (DPT), corrupt Partition Bad Sectors and many other errors. 3Recover Lost Data Caused by BOOTMGR Missing Error The problem of computer system often comes along with data lost from your computer,with the wrong operations to fix bootmgr mising error will result in hard drive formatted and inaccessible data,or hard drive partition.Under these circumstances, you will need a to retrieve lost data back. Recover lost or deleted files, photos, audio, music, emails from any storage device effectively, safely and completely. Supports data recovery from recycle bin, hard drive, memory card, flash drive, digital camera and camcorders. Supports to recover data for sudden deletion, formatting, hard drive corruption, virus attack, system crash under different situations. Preview before recovery allows you to make a selective recovery. Supported OS: Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista, Mac OS X (Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 Yosemite, 10.10, 10.11 El Capitan, 10.12 Sierra) on iMac, MacBook, Mac Pro etc.