Alfred von Campe
2009-May-14 14:30 UTC
[CentOS] Kickstart hang trying to install CentOS 5.3
I've been using kickstart successfully with a local mirror going back to CentOS 4.X. I'm trying to install CentOS 5.3 via kickstart on a new system (which happens to be different than most other systems I've installed on), and the install process always hangs shortly after the partitions are created. If I go to the alternate console #3, the last two lines are always this (except that the time stamp changes every time I try it of course): 10:06:18 DEBUG: Member xorg-x11-drv-i128-1.2.0-4 - u 10:06:18 DEBUG: Adding Package xorg-x11-drv-i128-1.2.0-4.i386 in mode u This is preceded by hundreds of similar lines for other packages, but it always hangs at xorg-x11-drv-i128-1.2.0-4. I am currently out of other systems to test/install this on. Instead of the usual ThinkCentre mini tower, this system is a ThinkCentre pizza box. I've installed CentOS on this type of hardware before without problems, but it hangs on the only two systems I currently have. It's possible that there is something wrong with my local mirror, but I rsync it every night and this problem has been going on for a few days. I will try to install this on a mini tower to rule out any hardware compatibility issues, but in the mean time, I'm looking for suggestions on how to debug this. I've booted into Linux rescue mode after power cycling the system after it hung to look at whatever did get installed, but there are no useful log files. Alfred
Alfred von Campe wrote:> I've been using kickstart successfully with a local mirror going back > to CentOS 4.X. I'm trying to install CentOS 5.3 via kickstart on a > new system (which happens to be different than most other systems > I've installed on), and the install process always hangs shortly > after the partitions are created. If I go to the alternate console > #3, the last two lines are always this (except that the time stamp > changes every time I try it of course):How long does it hang? CentOS 5.x takes much longer to get to the point where it is installing packages than 4.x, probably a good 3-4 minutes more, perhaps longer if your mirror is over a WAN connection, my mirror is on the local LAN and it does take a long time as well though it always has(CentOS 5.0,5.1,5.2, haven't tried 5.3). Unless your waiting for hours for it to go I think what your seeing is "normal". I'd suggest using a mirror on your local network to see if it speeds anything up, but I think most of the time is spent on the client calculating the various things it needs for packages. nate