This is a small paper on setting up a Kickstart server. I used CentOS in this paper. A quick over view on Kickstart installations can be found here: Kickstart Installation

First configure a NFS server that will store your Kickstart configuration files, and the install ISO’s. This is what my /etc/exports file looks like:

/kicks/                         *(rw,sync)
/nfs-shares/CentOS_5.3_i386     *(ro,no_root_squash)

The /kicks/ directory stores the kickstart configuration. The /nfs-shares/CentOS_5.3_i386 stores the install ISO’s.

This is an example of my ks.cfg file for Kickstart installation, this is a very simple configuration. Many more options can be configured as can be seen here: Kickstart Options

Example ks.cfg stored in /kicks/ks.cfg:

# Kickstart file automatically generated by anaconda.
install
nfs --server=nfs-serve.mydomain.com --dir=/nfs-shares/CentOS_5.3_i386
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
xconfig --startxonboot
network --device eth0 --bootproto dhcp --hostname station.mydomain.com
rootpw --iscrypted $KxSiDWLjnyp10lqty$
firewall --enabled --port=22:tcp
authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
selinux --enforcing
timezone --utc America/New_York
bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda --append="rhgb quiet"
# The following is the partition information you requested
# Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed
# here so unless you clear all partitions first, this is
# not guaranteed to work
clearpart --all --drives=sda
part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100 --ondisk=sda
part pv.2 --size=0 --grow --ondisk=sda
volgroup VolGroup00 --pesize=32768 pv.2
logvol swap --fstype swap --name=LogVol01 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=256 --grow --maxsize=512
logvol / --fstype ext3 --name=LogVol00 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=1024 --grow
%packages
@development-libs
@editors
@text-internet
@gnome-desktop
@dialup
@core
@base
@ftp-server
@network-server
@base-x
@web-server
@smb-server
@mail-server
@server-cfg
@admin-tools
@development-tools
kexec-tools
bridge-utils
device-mapper-multipath
vnc-server
xorg-x11-server-Xnest
xorg-x11-server-Xvfb
imake
-sysreport

Next I’ll boot the system to be kickstarted with the netinstall.iso for the CentOS 5.3 distro. (CentOS-5.3-i386-netinstall.iso)

Once the system is booted from the netinstall ISO enter the following a the boot prompt to begin the Kickstart installation.

linux ks=nfs:192.168.4.17:/kicks/ks.cfg

(replace 192.168.4.17 with your NFS server)

Sit back and enjoy the automated installation.