1.8. Making the Kickstart File Available

A kickstart file must be placed in one of the following locations:

On a boot diskette
On a boot CD-ROM
On a network

Normally a kickstart file is copied to the boot diskette, or made available on the network. The network-based approach is most commonly used, as most kickstart installations tend to be performed on networked computers.

Let us take a more in-depth look at where the kickstart file may be placed.

1.8.1. Creating Kickstart Boot Media

Diskette-based booting is no longer supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Installations must use CD-ROM or flash memory products for booting. However, the kickstart file may still reside on a diskette's top-level directory, and must be named ks.cfg.

To perform a CD-ROM-based kickstart installation, the kickstart file must be named ks.cfg and must be located in the boot CD-ROM's top-level directory. Since a CD-ROM is read-only, the file must be added to the directory used to create the image that is written to the CD-ROM. Refer to the Installation Guide for instructions on creating boot media; however, before making the file.iso image file, copy the ks.cfg kickstart file to the isolinux/ directory.

To perform a pen-based flash memory kickstart installation, the kickstart file must be named ks.cfg and must be located in the flash memory's top-level directory. Create the boot image first, and then copy the ks.cfg file.

For example, the following transfers a boot image to the pen drive (/dev/sda) using the dd command:

 dd if=diskboot.img of=/dev/sda bs=1M

Note

Creation of USB flash memory pen drives for booting is possible, but is heavily dependent on system hardware BIOS settings. Refer to your hardware manufacturer to see if your system supports booting to alternate devices.