Centos7 Kickstart on VirtualBox/VMware Workstation

1
votes

I am trying to create a kickstart for Centos 7.3. I have a windows desktop with VMware Workstation Player installed. I started with a dvd that has Centos 7.3 on it. I then created a vm in VMware Workstation Player and installed the os. I restarted the vm and copied over all the files from /dev/sr0 from my dvd to a new place. I copied the anaconda file and renamed it to ks.cfg. I then used the command below to make an iso.

mkisofs -o /home/kickstart.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-road-size 4 -boot-info-able -J -R -v "centos7.3"

Next I took this and burned it to a blank cd using

growisofs --dvd-compat -Z /dev/cdrom=/home/kickstart.iso

When I use this in VirtualBox as the optical drive mounted the installer gets stuck on

Started Show Plymouth Boot Screen Started Device-Mapper Multipath Device Controller Starting Open-iSCSI... Reached target Paths. Reached target Basic System. Started Open-iSCSI. Starting dracut initqueue hook..

then on VMware Workstation Player it goes to

Started Show Plymouth Boot Screen Started Device-Mapper Multipath Device Controller Starting Open-iSCSI... Reached target Paths. Reached target Basic System. Started Open-iSCSI. Starting dracut initqueue hook.. ... [sda] Assuming cache: write though

Why is it hanging on these spots? I have tried looked everywhere and can't seem to find any solutions so far.

1
virtualboxcentos7vmware-workstationkickstarter

1 Answers

2
votes

you've probably found something else for this but in case not, or in case someone else encounters this... I encountered some issues with this as well. I don't know if I have the exact issue, though it was hanging on dracut init, and changing this bit allowed the install to continue.

What it turned out to be was the -V flag on the mkisofs command. Whatever you name it with the -V flag (which it doesn't look like you have), it needs to be the value of LABEL in your /isolinux/isolinux.cfg file. In my fiddling I was using "MyLinuxISO" for this value.

in my /isolinux/isolinux.cfg: label linux menu label ^Install CentOS Linux 7 with KS menu default kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img inst.stage2=hd:LABEL=MyLinuxISO ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg

using mkisofs mkisofs -o /home/kickstart.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-road-size 4 -boot-info-able -J -R -v -V "MyLinuxISO"

Don't know if this will help you but give it a shot?

Cheers