Kickstart and Hostnames

The basic purpose to use kickstarts is to install numerous systems at a time with given para.

Configuring each system post install is tedious.

I found a workaround (that worked for me on Oracle Linux 6 and RHEL 6 and should most probably work for similar distros) to automate this task post install as well. If you know better solution, drop a comment below.

In the %post% section,

Add this:

 exec < /dev/tty6 > /dev/tty6 2> /dev/tty6  
 chvt 6  

This will switch to the 6th TTY and will drop into interactive shell. This allows installer to ask for information.

Let's try to ask for information:

 echo -n "Enter Hostname: "  
 read HOSTNAME1  
 echo -n "Enter IP Address: "  
 read IPADDR  
 echo -n "Enter Netmask: "  
 read NETMASK  
 echo -n "Enter Gateway: "  
 read GATEWAY  

Now that we have information, we can use the inbuilt cmd to configure the interface. I assumed first interface as eth0 (which it is in most cases. If you are not sure, you might want to add this to automation to detect what interface you have).

  echo -n "Applying network settings..."  
 echo "DeviceList.Ethernet.eth0.BootProto=static  
 DeviceList.Ethernet.eth0.IP=$IPADDR  
 DeviceList.Ethernet.eth0.Netmask=$NETMASK  
 DeviceList.Ethernet.eth0.Gateway=$GATEWAY  
 ProfileList.default.DNS.Hostname=$HOSTNAME1.domain.com  
 ProfileList.default.DNS.Domainname=domain.com" > /tmp/network-config  
 system-config-network-cmd -i -f /tmp/network-config &> /dev/null  
 service network restart &> /dev/null 

The system-config-network-cmd helps us import /tmp/network-config file.
Restarting network service later loads the new configuration.

To drop out of the TTY 6 and resume back to anaconda use chvt trick again:

 chvt 1  
 exec < /dev/tty1 > /dev/tty1 2> /dev/tty1  

Credits for chvt trick: Hintshop blog.