32.8. Making the Kickstart File Available

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

On removable media, such as a floppy disk, optical disk, or USB flash drive
On a hard drive
On a network

Normally a kickstart file is copied to the removable media or hard drive, 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.

32.8.1. Creating Kickstart Boot Media

To perform a kickstart installation using removable media, the kickstart file must be named ks.cfg and must be located in the top-level directory of the disc.

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. Separate boot media will be required.

Refer to Section 2.3, “Making Minimal Boot Media” for instructions on creating boot media.

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.

Refer to Section 2.3, “Making Minimal Boot Media” for instructions on creating live USB media using the rhel-variant-version-architecture-boot.iso image file that you can download from the Software & Download Center of the Red Hat customer portal.

Note

Creation of USB flashdrives 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.