Linux at NC State

wiki support   search:

WebKickstart Change Log

WebKickstart Change Log

  • Glaring bugs in the check.py script are fixed.
  • The docs for the 'use' keyword have been cleared up a bit. Need to be carefull about current directories and paths.
  • Implemented including scripts in the config files after a '%post' key. See the examples above.
  • Completely changed how mouse configuration is done. This now works with all types of mice that the Red Hat Kickstart stuff knows of. See the docs.
  • Added support for the 8.0 RK. The version string is "8.0".
  • 02/14/03 - Moved the Debug Tool to a WRAP'd directory that's served from secure.linux.ncsu.edu to protect the information while you are debuging.
  • 02/14/03 - We do not send a default kickstart anymore if there is no config file. You must have a config file.
  • 02/14/03 - Moved to permanent location in AFS.
  • 04/14/03 - Added support for the NCSU Realm Kit for Red Hat Linux 9 AKA Shreak. The version string is "9".
  • 04/24/03 - Added RK 9 boot CD.
  • 05/08/03 - Added "enable safepartition" key and changed the default size of /var/cache to 512MB, /var to 390 and /boot to 75. I've also added a new option to the src key and changed the default to that option of "http" which installs from install.linux.ncsu.edu.
  • 06/05/03 - Added "enable keepmbr" which doesn't overwrite the MBR with the bootloader. The bootloader is placed in the boot partition (/boot).
  • 06/20/03 - Implemented "owner" key. Fixed % handling so that anything after a line beginning with "%" is included, including that % line. This makes adding %post, %pre, etc a bit more useful as you can pass options to them. Fixed case where the use keyword is used more than once. Fixed the growing URL problem when the Reinstall Workstation boot option is used.
  • 08/26/03 - RAID and LVM support for versions 9 and higher. The part, raid, volgroup, and logvol keys are all used just as you would use them in a Red Hat Kickstart. An example provided.
  • 09/02/03 - Check for and only serve a kickstart to Anaconda not just any HTTP client. Web-kickstart installs are now logged into a MySQL database.
  • 09/09/03 - The functionality of the 'users' keyword has been changed. Currently, using this keyword will do nothing. To specify additional admin users you should now use the 'enable adminusers [user[, user ... ]]' key. The 'users' key will be changed to behave identically to the Solaris version RSN. Also, there is now no way to override pulling an admin user list from AFS, but 'enable adminusers' will add to this list.
  • 10/10/03 - Changed the 'root' key to 'rootpw'. The root key will have new functionality similar to that of the Solaris config files in the future.
  • 11/21/03 - Added support for Realm Linux FC1. The version string to use is "FC1"
  • 12/31/03 - Fixed #286 which makes the 'use' keyword much more saner. Top level configs override included configs and top level %posts come after included %posts. Also changed the system so that admin users and root passwords are pulled from Jeff's "new" update system. See /afs/bp/system/common/update/.
  • 3/8/04 - Fixed #296 which adds the key 'enable staticip' to configure a client with a static IP address rather than DHCP. See the documentation for exact usage. Note that web-kickstart will requires DHCP to get the kickstart to the client.
  • 3/29/04 - Got some great feedback from a user about the web page and documentation. The web page and docs were updated to try to make them more user friendly.
  • 3/31/04 - Added support for Realm Linux WS3. Use 'WS3' for the version string.
  • 4/20/04 - Added enable activationkey <key>. This allows you to use a non-default RHN activation key to register RHEL-based systems.
  • 4/23/04 - Added a call to up2date for RHEL. This installs all updates to the system during post-install rather than having to wait until the nightly cron job.
  • 05/12/04 - Ported some bugfixes and improvements from the devel branch to stable. This fixes usage problems with raid and LVM associated keys.
  • 05/16/04 - Merged changes from stable branch to head. Added "firewall" keyword that works just like Red Hat's kickstart and "enable nofirewall" which disables the firewall all together.
  • 05/21/04 - Added extra code for RHEL based Realm Linux to configure Up2Date more completely. Also made the Grub reinstall trick a bit smarter so that one can provide the vmlinuz and initrd.img files in a different manager.
  • 06/25/04 - User/Password update scripts in AFS were removing the admin users added by 'enable adminusers' is fixed by also dropping the user IDs in users.local.base and .k5login.base. Also, the 'cluster' keyword now works via the update.conf file to control login cluster via PTS groups.
  • 06/25/04 - Fixed bug that was appearing as duplicated output in the update.conf files and generated kickstarts.
  • 07/23/04 - A similar bug that was causing the loss of admin users added by 'enable adminusers' was also affecting 'enable normalusers'.
  • 09/02/04 - Added support for Realm Linux FC2.
  • 09/29/04 - Added the 'xconfig' key to configure X settings from the config file. Also release version 20040929.
  • 05/20/05 - Changed default size for the / partition to 8GB.
  • 05/20/05 - add "enable audit" keyword and disable auditd by default.
  • 06/28/05 - Add support for selinux. You may use the selinux keyword exactly as documented in Red Hat's Kickstart Options docs.
  • 06/28/05 - Add support for detection of machines that no longer resolve in dns
  • 06/28/05 - Renamed Specifix to rpath
  • 06/28/05 - Add support to turn case sensitivity on/off for version strings
  • 07/06/05 - Made collision support actually work. Lots of random updates, fixes, and web page updates.
  • 05/01/06 -
    • Web-Kickstart will set the ksdevice for the re-install target in Grub to the same ksdevice used to do the inital install.
    • Various typos and small differences between RHEL 3 and 4 are corrected.
    • Remove the need for the configs/ symlink, all non-absoulte paths given to the 'use' key are now relative to the top level config directory and should no longer start with "config/".
    • Gard against infinite recursion.
    • Web-Kickstart errors no longer generate a traceback, just the error message. Non- handled errors still produce a traceback.
    • The 'clearpart' key from the Kickstart documentation is now supported.
    • Force the name of the RHN Profile to be the FQDN of the host.
  • 06/02/06 - Added the staticip keyword. This adds a script to convert an installed client to use a static IP setup rather than DHCP. Usefull for servers.
  • 06/05/06 - If a reverse DNS query returns a host name with capital letters Web-Kickstart will look for a matching file in a case-insensitive manner.
  • 07/03/06 - In certain cases Web-Kickstart could not find the version key in the config file. This bug was corrected.
  • 07/03/06 - Implement a logging mechanism.
  • 10/11/06 - Corrected a logic error that was preventing the incorperation of certain keys in files that were included with 'use.'
  • 11/02/06 - Changed the 'staticip' key word to use the KSDEVICE rather than a hard coded "eth0." I also moved the KSDEVICE variable declaration to the top of the post so that other bits could use the variable as well.
  • 04/11/07 - Realm Linux 5 Support
    • Added the following keywords: cmdline, ignoredisk, key, multipath, repo, vnc
    • Added support for defining Red Hat INs in the configuration for each version tag
    • Added support for defining additional repos (via the repo Kickstart option) in the configuration per version
    • 5 has SELinux disabled by default
    • 5 treats package groups differently, but Web-Kickstart will still use the same Realm Linux groups
    • Other misc kickstart syntax changes
    • Reworked software so that Web-Kickstart acts as a python package
  • 04/17/07 - Use RLM Tools XMLRPC interface to log installs.
  • 04/30/07 - Use if statements while importing the RPM keys as they live in a different place in RL5.
  • 05/02/07 - Added a bit of extra code to work around Red Hat bug #236669.
  • 05/16/07
    • Added the 'skippartition' option which removes all partitioning related keys
    • Made the zerombr kickstart keyword work in RHEL 5 and previous as the syntax changed for RHEL 5
    • Add a 'logging' key by request that is passed directly to the kickstart. This modifies Anaconda's logging.
  • 05/21/07 - Added an 'include' keyword which allows a config file to make use of the kickstart %include directive.
  • 06/19/07 - Always use the 'noipv6' flag. Versions that do not understand the flag will ignore it. We don't have IPv6 stuff yet. Rework the RHN bits as we know what our host name is no reason to make the client figure it out again.
  • 10/23/07 - Access to the Web-Kickstart Tools Page is now controlled by the installer:common PTS group in the BP cell.
  • 03/27/08 - Add the users specified with 'enable adminusers' to /etc/suders.base.
  • 04/10/08 - Add the HWADDR line to the ifcfg-XXX script generated by the 'staticpi' keyword. This corrects a RHEL 5 bug where kudzu would remove the new configuration.
  • 04/17/08 - Additional admin users specified in the config that are not pulled from AFS are now placed into /etc/users.local.base. User names lists could contain duplicates and now have these duplicates removed before added to the on disk files that control authorization.
  • 04/21/08 - Update the default partitioning to use LVM:
    part /boot --size 512
    part pv.00 --fstype=LVM --size 18432 --grow
    volgroup Volume00 pv.00
    logvol /          --size 8192 --fstype ext3 --vgname=Volume00 --name=root
    logvol swap     --recommended --fstype swap --vgname=Volume00 --name=swap
    logvol /tmp       --size 2048 --fstype ext3 --vgname=Volume00 --name=tmp
    logvol /var       --size 2048 --fstype ext3 --vgname=Volume00 --name=var