CentOS - Dec 2010 - Kickstart Network Configuration Issues

Hello all,
I've been struggling with an issue with my kickstart configuration for a
while now. My kickstart files are stored within the initrd image. What I would
like to do here, is when the kickstart first starts up, I want it to grab a DHCP
address (it does at the moment) so it can grab all of the necessary installation
data off the net. Then, at some point _IN_ the install process, I'd like to
have it query for manually input network settings. Here is my current kickstart
script:

  auth  --useshadow  --enablemd5 
  bootloader --location=mbr
  zerombr
  clearpart --all --initlabel 
  text
  firewall --enabled --port=22:tcp
  firstboot --disable
  keyboard us
  lang en_US
  logging --level=info
  url --url=http://mirror.nexcess.net/CentOS/5.5/os/x86_64/
  reboot --eject
  rootpw --iscrypted xx
  selinux --enforcing
  skipx
  timezone --isUtc America/Detroit
  install

  part /boot --bytes-per-inode=4096 --fstype="ext3" --size=512
--ondisk=sda
  part swap --bytes-per-inode=4096 --fstype="swap" --size=2048
--ondisk=sda
  part / --bytes-per-inode=4096 --fstype="ext3" --grow --size=1
--ondisk=sda
  part /backup --bytes-per-inode=4096 --fstype="ext3" --grow --size=1
--ondisk=sdb

  network --bootproto=dhcp --device=eth0

  %packages --nobase
  @core
  system-config-network-tui

  %post
  echo "nameserver 4.2.2.1" > /etc/resolv.conf
  echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" >> /etc/resolv.conf

  # write netconfig script
  cat << EOF > /bin/netconfig 
  #!/bin/bash
  # check if user is root
  if [[ \$EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
      echo "This script must be run as root" 1>&2
      exit 1
  fi
  # run system-config-network-tui
  /usr/sbin/system-config-network-tui
  # set variables
  eth0f="/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0"
  eth1f="/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1"
  netcfg="/etc/sysconfig/network"
  # turn on eth1 if it has an address, remove gateway.. shouldn't be set
here
  # anyways
  if [ -f "\$eth1f" ]; then
      if grep -q "IPADDR" \$eth1f; then
          sed -i 's/ONBOOT=no/ONBOOT=yes/' \$eth1f
          sed -i '/^GATEWAY/d' \$eth1f
          sed -i '/^HOTPLUG/d' \$eth1f
      fi
  fi
  # move gateway from ifcfg-eth0 to /etc/sysconfig/network
  if [ -f "\$eth0f" ]; then
      e0gw=\$(grep "GATEWAY" \$eth0f)
      sed -i '/^GATEWAY/d' \$eth0f
      # check to see if the gateway is already set. if it is, delete it first
      if ! grep -q "GATEWAY" /etc/sysconfig/network; then
          echo \$e0gw >> \$netcfg
      else
          sed -i '/^GATEWAY/d' \$netcfg
          echo \$e0gw >> \$netcfg
      fi
  fi
  EOF
  chmod +x /bin/netconfig

At the moment, I have a not-so-elegant script written to the server to be run
manually after install. I began using system-config-network-tui vanilla, but
realized it had some differences from the network configuration tool in anaconda
(net.c?) I tried my best to correct those differences with my netconfig script.
I've already tried running system-config-network-tui in the %post section,
but it doesn't seem to work. If anyone has had experience in dealing with a
scenario such as this, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Daniel Theisen <dtheisen at nexcess.net>

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Daniel Theisen <dtheisen at nexcess.net>
wrote:
> Hello all,
> I've been struggling with an issue with my kickstart configuration for
a while now. My kickstart files are stored within the initrd image. What I would
like to do here, is when the kickstart first starts up, I want it to grab a DHCP
address (it does at the moment) so it can grab all of the necessary installation
data off the net. Then, at some point _IN_ the install process, I'd like to
have it query for manually input network settings. Here is my current kickstart
script:
This is a common setup. My suggested approach is to always use DHCP,
and set DHCP reservations on your DHCP server to consistently assign
the same IP to the same client's MAC address. That way, you can assign
the IP and hostname in your local DNS or /etc/hosts or NIS hosts table
or whatever, and get it set consistently.

The only missing feature this way for CentOS 5 is the list of
automatic search domains, for which the network setup tools provide no
DHCP compatible hook and the DHCP is too old to follow the years-old
RFC and handle multiple searchable domains. The answer to that is to
manually put a "SEARCH" setting in /etc/sysconfig/network.
> ?url --url=http://mirror.nexcess.net/CentOS/5.5/os/x86_64/
If you're going to be doing this a lot, set up a local CentOS mirror
and take most of the load off the external servers. It's a lot of
bandwidth to be eating all the time for rebuilds.
> ?%post
> ?echo "nameserver 4.2.2.1" > /etc/resolv.conf
> ?echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" >> /etc/resolv.conf
>
> ?# write netconfig script
> ?cat << EOF > /bin/netconfig
> ?#!/bin/bash
> ?# check if user is root
> ?if [[ \$EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
> ? ? ?echo "This script must be run as root" 1>&2
> ? ? ?exit 1
> ?fi
> ?# run system-config-network-tui
> ?/usr/sbin/system-config-network-tui

You can set up the eth0/eth1/etc. ports entirely from the output of
"/sbin/ifconfig". If folks like, I'll try to dig up my tools.

The "system-config-network-tui" script is, sadly, pretty useless for
auto-provisioning. None of RHEL's upstream tools have support for
configuring pair bonding or network bridging correctly, which is
pretty important for servers or KVM virtualization server setups.