On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Dan White <ygor(a)comcast.net>
wrote:
> Good to see you on the list, Michael. I thought you had moved on.
> So it looks like the current buildiso will not give me what I am asking for.
> Dang.
Yes, though I want to help out here some.
>
> I was hoping for a standalone loader that I could customize to the system level.
> This is because the DHCP in the environment I am in is run by the Microsoft Side of
the House and I have not been able to get consistent behavior from the first part of the
Cobbler net-boot process.
>
> Reference:
https://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/cobbler/2011-November/006889.html
>
> Is buildiso.py self-contained ? I would be willing to take a shot at getting it to
do what I want.
> Seems like a good feature to contribute for me to the stew.
If you only have the captive DHCP scenario, you don't need the
standalone. As Jörgen says below, the standalone mode is intended
for network-less environments. Imagine you have two environments at
your work -- one is full on PXE, another is a heavily locked down lab
with no outside networking and can't see the cobbler server. This
allows you to provision inside that second network (or on something
without a network at all). It's still fully automatic, but it puts
the kickstart onto the ISO with the distribution tree.
If you only need to avoid DHCP, the default buildiso mode just puts
the menu on the CD, but the install trees and kickstarts are still
contained on your cobbler server. This allows you to modify the
kickstarts without reburning the CD, but you would want to reburn the
CD to change kernel options or add distros/profiles. However, if
you're lucky, you could also just get the Microsoft side of the house
to set the "next-server" parameter for your DHCP by MAC/subnet/etc to
point at the Cobbler server -- assuming they can do that.
Sadly, it is uglier that that.
They will not configure the development lab sub-net to default PXE-boot from my server.
I have to use individual DHCP reservations. And they cannot/will-not do them
consistently/properly.
I have resorted to the ISO workflow to end a multi-day personal productivity blockage.
“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe
is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
Bill Waterson (Calvin & Hobbes)