Appendix B. Kickstart commands and options reference

Notes

• This command has no options.
• To actually run the installation, you must specify one of cdrom, harddrive, hmc, nfs, liveimg, ostreesetup, rhsm, or url unless the inst.repo option is specified on the kernel command line.

Notes

• For a fully automatic installation, you must either specify one of the available modes (graphical, text, or cmdline) in the Kickstart file, or you must use the console= boot option. If no mode is specified, the system will use graphical mode if possible, or prompt you to choose from RDP and text mode.
• This command has no options.
• This mode is useful on 64-bit IBM Z systems with the x3270 terminal.

• partition - Partition containing the driver disk. The partition must be specified as a full path (for example, /dev/sdb1), not just the partition name (for example, sdb1).

• --source= - URL for the driver disk. Examples include:

  driverdisk --source=ftp://path/to/dd.img
  driverdisk --source=http://path/to/dd.img
  driverdisk --source=nfs:host:/path/to/dd.img

• --biospart= - BIOS partition containing the driver disk (for example, 82p2).

Options

• --agreed (required) - Accepts the EULA. This option must always be used, otherwise the eula command is meaningless.

Options

• --enable or --enabled - Initial Setup is started the first time the system boots.
• --disable or --disabled - Initial Setup is not started the first time the system boots.
• --reconfig - Enable the Initial Setup to start at boot time in reconfiguration mode. This mode enables the root password, time & date, and networking & host name configuration options in addition to the default ones.

Options

• --non-interactive - Performs the installation in a completely non-interactive mode. This mode will terminate the installation when user interaction is required.

Note

• For a fully automatic installation, you must either specify one of the available modes (graphical, text, or cmdline) in the Kickstart file, or you must use the console= boot option. If no mode is specified, the system will use graphical mode if possible, or prompt you to choose from RDP and text mode.

Notes

• The halt command is equivalent to the shutdown -H command. For more details, see the shutdown(8) man page on your system.
• For other completion methods, see the poweroff, reboot, and shutdown commands.

Options

• --partition= - Partition to install from (such as sdb2).
• --dir= - Directory containing the variant directory of the installation tree, or the ISO image of the full installation DVD.

Notes

• Previously, the harddrive command had to be used together with the install command. The install command has been deprecated and harddrive can be used on its own, because it implies install.
• To actually run the installation, you must specify one of cdrom, harddrive, hmc, nfs, liveimg, ostreesetup, rhsm, or url unless the inst.repo option is specified on the kernel command line.

Mandatory options

• --url= - The location to install from. Supported protocols are HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and file.

Optional options

• --url= - The location to install from. Supported protocols are HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and file.
• --proxy= - Specify an HTTP, HTTPS or FTP proxy to use while performing the installation.
• --checksum= - An optional argument with the SHA256 checksum of the image file, used for verification.
• --noverifyssl - Disable SSL verification when connecting to an HTTPS server.

Notes

• The image can be the squashfs.img file from a live ISO image, a compressed tar file (.tar, .tbz, .tgz, .txz, .tar.bz2, .tar.gz, or .tar.xz.), or any file system that the installation media can mount. Supported file systems are ext2, ext3, ext4, vfat, and xfs.
• When using the liveimg installation mode with a driver disk, drivers on the disk will not automatically be included in the installed system. If necessary, these drivers should be installed manually, or in the %post section of a kickstart script.
• To actually run the installation, you must specify one of cdrom, harddrive, hmc, nfs, liveimg, ostreesetup, rhsm, or url unless the inst.repo option is specified on the kernel command line.

Optional options

• --host= - Send logging information to the given remote host, which must be running a syslogd process configured to accept remote logging.
• --port= - If the remote syslog process uses a port other than the default port, set it by using this option.

Note

• This Kickstart command is equivalent to the rd.live.check boot option.

Options

• --server= - Server from which to install (host name or IP).
• --dir= - Directory containing the variant directory of the installation tree.
• --opts= - Mount options to use for mounting the NFS export. (optional)

Note

• To actually run the installation, you must specify one of cdrom, harddrive, hmc, nfs, liveimg, ostreesetup, rhsm, or url unless the inst.repo option is specified on the kernel command line.

Mandatory options:

• --osname=OSNAME - Management root for OS installation.
• --url=URL - URL of the repository to install from.
• --ref=REF - Name of the branch from the repository to be used for installation.

Optional options:

• --remote=REMOTE - A remote repository location.
• --nogpg - Disable GPG key verification.

Options:

• --no-signature-verification: Use this option to disable verification by using an ostree remote.
• --stateroot: Name of the state directory, also known as "osname”. Default value is default.
• --url: Name of the container image for the registry transport. For example, quay.io/exampleos/foo:latest.
• --transport: The transport, for example, registry, oci, oci-archive. The default value is registry.
• --remote: Name of the OSTree remote used for GPG signature verification. Generally not needed, and does not work with layered images.

Notes

• The poweroff option is equivalent to the shutdown -P command. For more details, see the shutdown(8) man page on your system.
• For other completion methods, see the halt, reboot, and shutdown Kickstart commands. The halt option is the default completion method if no other methods are explicitly specified in the Kickstart file.
• The poweroff command is highly dependent on the system hardware in use. Specifically, certain hardware components such as the BIOS, APM (advanced power management), and ACPI (advanced configuration and power interface) must be able to interact with the system kernel. Consult your hardware documentation for more information about your system’s APM/ACPI abilities.

Options

• --eject - Attempt to eject the bootable media (DVD, USB, or other media) before rebooting.

• --kexec - Uses the kexec system call instead of performing a full reboot, which immediately loads the installed system into memory, bypassing the hardware initialization normally performed by the BIOS or firmware.

  Important

  This option is deprecated and available as a Technology Preview only. For information about Red Hat scope of support for Technology Preview features, see the Technology Preview Features Support Scope document.

  When kexec is used, device registers (which would normally be cleared during a full system reboot) might stay filled with data, which could potentially create issues for some device drivers.

Notes

• Use of the reboot option might result in an endless installation loop, depending on the installation media and method.
• The reboot option is equivalent to the shutdown -r command. For more details, see the shutdown(8) man page on your system.
• Specify reboot to automate installation fully when installing in command line mode on 64-bit IBM Z.
• For other completion methods, see the halt, poweroff, and shutdown Kickstart options. The halt option is the default completion method if no other methods are explicitly specified in the Kickstart file.

Options

• --organization= - Uses the organization id to register and install RHEL from the CDN.
• --activation-key= - Uses the activation key to register and install RHEL from the CDN. Option can be used multiple times, once per activation key, as long as the activation keys used are registered to your subscription.
• --connect-to-insights - Connects the target system to Red Hat Insights.
• --proxy= - Sets the HTTP proxy.

Notes

• The shutdown Kickstart option is equivalent to the shutdown command. For more details, see the shutdown(8) man page on your system.
• For other completion methods, see the halt, poweroff, and reboot Kickstart options. The halt option is the default completion method if no other methods are explicitly specified in the Kickstart file.

Mandatory options

• --username=name - Provides the name of the user. This option is required.
• password - The password to use for the user. This option is required.

Optional options

• --iscrypted - If this option is present, the password argument is assumed to already be encrypted. This option is mutually exclusive with --plaintext. To create an encrypted password, you can use Python:

  $ python3 -c 'import crypt,getpass;pw=getpass.getpass();print(crypt.crypt(pw) if (pw==getpass.getpass("Confirm: ")) else exit())'

  This generates a sha512 crypt-compatible hash of your password by using a random salt.

• --plaintext - If this option is present, the password argument is assumed to be in plain text. This option is mutually exclusive with --iscrypted
• --lock - If this option is present, this account is locked by default. This means that the user will not be able to log in from the console.
• --sshkey - If this option is present, then the <password> string is interpreted as an ssh key value.

Notes

• By default, the ssh server is not started during the installation. To make ssh available during the installation, boot the system with the kernel boot option inst.sshd.

• If you want to disable root ssh access, while allowing another user ssh access, use the following:

  sshpw --username=example_username example_password --plaintext
  sshpw --username=root example_password --lock

• To simply disable root ssh access, use the following:

  sshpw --username=root example_password --lock

Options

• --non-interactive - Performs the installation in a completely non-interactive mode. This mode will terminate the installation when user interaction is required.

Note

• For a fully automatic installation, you must either specify one of the available modes (graphical, text, or cmdline) in the Kickstart file, or you must use the console= boot option. If no mode is specified, the system will use graphical mode if possible, or prompt you to choose from RDP and text mode.

Options

• --url=FROM - Specifies the HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, or file location to install from.
• --mirrorlist= - Specifies the mirror URL to install from.
• --proxy= - Specifies an HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP proxy to use during the installation.
• --noverifyssl - Disables SSL verification when connecting to an HTTPS server.
• --metalink=URL - Specifies the metalink URL to install from. Variable substitution is done for $releasever and $basearch in the URL.

Examples

• To install from a HTTP server:

  url --url=http://server/path

• To install from a FTP server:

  url --url=ftp://username:password@server/path

Note

• To actually run the installation, you must specify one of cdrom, harddrive, hmc, nfs, liveimg, ostreesetup, rhsm, or url unless the inst.repo option is specified on the kernel command line.

Notes

• This command passes all options to the authselect command. Refer to the authselect(8) manual page and the authselect --help command for more details.
• Passwords are shadowed by default.
• When using OpenLDAP with the SSL protocol for security, ensure that the SSLv2 and SSLv3 protocols are disabled in the server configuration. This is due to the POODLE SSL vulnerability (CVE-2014-3566). For more information, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution Resolution for POODLE SSLv3.0 vulnerability.

Mandatory options

• --enabled or --enable - Reject incoming connections that are not in response to outbound requests, such as DNS replies or DHCP requests. If access to services running on this machine is needed, you can choose to allow specific services through the firewall.
• --disabled or --disable - Do not configure any iptables rules.

Optional options

• --trust - Listing a device here, such as em1, allows all traffic coming to and from that device to go through the firewall. To list more than one device, use the option more times, such as --trust em1 --trust em2. Do not use a comma-separated format such as --trust em1, em2.
• --remove-service - Do not allow services through the firewall.

• incoming - Replace with one or more of the following to allow the specified services through the firewall.

  • --ssh
  • --smtp
  • --http
  • --ftp
• --port= - You can specify that ports be allowed through the firewall using the port:protocol format. For example, to allow IMAP access through your firewall, specify imap:tcp. Numeric ports can also be specified explicitly; for example, to allow UDP packets on port 1234 through, specify 1234:udp. To specify multiple ports, separate them by commas.

• --service= - This option provides a higher-level way to allow services through the firewall. Some services (like cups, avahi, and so on.) require multiple ports to be open or other special configuration in order for the service to work. You can specify each individual port with the --port option, or specify --service= and open them all at once.

  Valid options are anything recognized by the firewall-offline-cmd program in the firewalld package. If the firewalld service is running, firewall-cmd --get-services provides a list of known service names.

• --use-system-defaults - Do not configure the firewall at all. This option instructs anaconda to do nothing and allows the system to rely on the defaults that were provided with the package or ostree. If this option is used with other options then all other options will be ignored.

Mandatory options

• --name= - Provides the name of the group.

Optional options

• --gid= - The group’s GID. If not provided, defaults to the next available non-system GID.

Notes

• If a group with the given name or GID already exists, this command fails.
• The user command can be used to create a new group for the newly created user.

Options

• --vckeymap= - Specify a VConsole keymap which should be used. Valid names correspond to the list of files in the /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/xkb/ directory, without the .map.gz extension.

• --xlayouts= - Specify a list of X layouts that should be used as a comma-separated list without spaces. Accepts values in the same format as setxkbmap(1), either in the layout format (such as cz), or in the layout (variant) format (such as cz (qwerty)).

  All available layouts can be viewed on the xkeyboard-config(7) man page under Layouts.

• --switch= - Specify a list of layout-switching options (shortcuts for switching between multiple keyboard layouts). Multiple options must be separated by commas without spaces. Accepts values in the same format as setxkbmap(1).

  Available switching options can be viewed on the xkeyboard-config(7) man page under Options.

Note

• Either the --vckeymap= or the --xlayouts= option must be used.

Mandatory options

• language - Install support for this language and set it as system default.

Optional options

• --addsupport= - Add support for additional languages. Takes the form of comma-separated list without spaces. For example:

  lang en_US --addsupport=cs_CZ,de_DE,en_UK

Notes

• The locale -a | grep _ or localectl list-locales | grep _ commands return a list of supported locales.
• Certain languages (for example, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indic languages) are not supported during text-mode installation. If you specify one of these languages with the lang command, the installation process continues in English, but the installed system uses your selection as its default language.

Notes

• Using a combination of this command and the %packages section allows you to install packages provided by the enabled module and stream combination, without specifying the module and stream explicitly. Modules must be enabled before package installation. After enabling a module with the module command, you can install the packages enabled by this module by listing them in the %packages section.
• A single module command can enable only a single module and stream combination. To enable multiple modules, use multiple module commands. Enabling a module multiple times with different streams is not possible.
• In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, modules are present only in the AppStream repository. To list available modules, use the dnf module list command on an installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux system with a valid subscription.

Mandatory options

• --name= - The repository id. This option is required. If a repository has a name which conflicts with another previously added repository, it is ignored. Because the installation program uses a list of preset repositories, this means that you cannot add repositories with the same names as the preset ones.

• --baseurl= - The URL to the repository.
• --mirrorlist= - The URL pointing at a list of mirrors for the repository.
• --metalink= - The URL with metalink for the repository.

Optional options

• --install - Save the provided repository configuration on the installed system in the /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory. Without using this option, a repository configured in a Kickstart file will only be available during the installation process, not on the installed system.
• --cost= - An integer value to assign a cost to this repository. If multiple repositories provide the same packages, this number is used to prioritize which repository will be used before another. Repositories with a lower cost take priority over repositories with higher cost.
• --excludepkgs= - A comma-separated list of package names that must not be pulled from this repository. This is useful if multiple repositories provide the same package and you want to make sure it comes from a particular repository. Both full package names (such as publican) and globs (such as gnome-*) are accepted.
• --includepkgs= - A comma-separated list of package names and globs that are allowed to be pulled from this repository. Any other packages provided by the repository will be ignored. This is useful if you want to install just a single package or set of packages from a repository while excluding all other packages the repository provides.
• --proxy=[protocol://][username[:password]@]host[:port] - Specify an HTTP/HTTPS/FTP proxy to use just for this repository. This setting does not affect any other repositories, nor how the install.img is fetched on HTTP installations.
• --noverifyssl - Disable SSL verification when connecting to an HTTPS server.

Note

• Repositories used for installation must be stable. The installation can fail if a repository is modified before the installation concludes.

Mandatory options

• password - Password specification. Either plain text or encrypted string. See --iscrypted and --plaintext below.

Options

• --iscrypted - If this option is present, the password argument is assumed to already be encrypted. This option is mutually exclusive with --plaintext. To create an encrypted password, you can use python:

  $ python -c 'import crypt,getpass;pw=getpass.getpass();print(crypt.crypt(pw) if (pw==getpass.getpass("Confirm: ")) else exit())'

  This generates a sha512 crypt-compatible hash of your password by using a random salt.

• --plaintext - If this option is present, the password argument is assumed to be in plain text. This option is mutually exclusive with --iscrypted.
• --lock - If this option is present, the root account is locked by default. This means that the root user will not be able to log in from the console. This option will also disable the Root Password screens in both the graphical and text-based manual installation.
• --allow-ssh - If this option is present, the root user can login to the system by using SSH with a password. This option is available in RHEL 9.1 and later only.

Options

• --disabled= - Disable the services given in the comma separated list.
• --enabled= - Enable the services given in the comma separated list.

Notes

• When using the services element to enable systemd services, ensure you include packages containing the specified service file in the %packages section.

• Multiple services should be included separated by comma, without any spaces. For example, to disable four services, enter:

  services --disabled=auditd,cups,smartd,nfslock

  If you include any spaces, Kickstart enables or disables only the services up to the first space. For example:

  services --disabled=auditd, cups, smartd, nfslock

  That disables only the auditd service. To disable all four services, this entry must include no spaces.

Mandatory options

• --username= - The user for which the key will be installed.
• ssh_key - The complete SSH key fingerprint. It must be wrapped with quotes.

Options

• --role= - Set the intended system role. Available values are:

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Compute Node

• --sla= - Set the Service Level Agreement. Available values are:

  • Premium
  • Standard
  • Self-Support

• --usage= - The intended usage of the system. Available values are:

  • Production
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Development/Test
• --addon= - Specifies additional layered products or features. You can use this option multiple times.

Notes

• Enter the values with spaces and enclose them in double quotes:

  syspurpose --role="Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server"

• While it is strongly recommended that you configure System Purpose, it is an optional feature of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation program.

Mandatory options

• timezone - the time zone to set for the system.

Optional options

• --utc - If present, the system assumes the hardware clock is set to UTC (Greenwich Mean) time.
• --ntp-server - Specifies the NTP server for network time synchronization during installation.

• --ntp-server - adds one NTP server as a time source. This option can be added only once to a single command in order to add a one NTP time source server. To add multiple sources, add multiple timesource commands each with a single --ntp-server or --ntp-pool option each time. For example, to add multiple sources for Europe timezone

  timezone Europe
  timesource --ntp-server 0.rhel.pool.ntp.org
  timesource --ntp-server 1.rhel.pool.ntp.org
  timesource --ntp-server 2.rhel.pool.ntp.org

• --ntp-pool - adds a NTP server pool as a time source. This option can be added only once to add a single NTP time source pool. Repeat the timesource command to add multiple sources.
• --ntp-disable - disables NTP time sources for the installed system.

Optional options

• --nts - the server or pool added with this command uses the NTS protocol. Note that this option can be added even with --ntp-disable, but it has no effect.

Note

• Only timesource command can mark servers and pools as using NTS instead of plain NTP protocol.

Mandatory options

• --name= - Provides the name of the user. This option is required.

Optional options

• --gecos= - Provides the GECOS information for the user. This is a string of various system-specific fields separated by a comma. It is frequently used to specify the user’s full name, office number, and so on. See the passwd(5) man page for more details.
• --groups= - In addition to the default group, a comma separated list of group names the user should belong to. The groups must exist before the user account is created. See the group command.
• --homedir= - The home directory for the user. If not provided, this defaults to /home/username.
• --lock - If this option is present, this account is locked by default. This means that the user will not be able to log in from the console. This option will also disable the Create User screens in both the graphical and text-based manual installation.
• --password= - The new user’s password. If not provided, the account will be locked by default.

• --iscrypted - If this option is present, the password argument is assumed to already be encrypted. This option is mutually exclusive with --plaintext. To create an encrypted password, you can use python:

  $ python -c 'import crypt,getpass;pw=getpass.getpass();print(crypt.crypt(pw) if (pw==getpass.getpass("Confirm: ")) else exit())'

  This generates a sha512 crypt-compatible hash of your password by using a random salt.

• --plaintext - If this option is present, the password argument is assumed to be in plain text. This option is mutually exclusive with --iscrypted
• --shell= - The user’s login shell. If not provided, the system default is used.
• --uid= - The user’s UID (User ID). If not provided, this defaults to the next available non-system UID.
• --gid= - The GID (Group ID) to be used for the user’s group. If not provided, this defaults to the next available non-system group ID.

Notes

• Consider using the --uid and --gid options to set IDs of regular users and their default groups at range starting at 5000 instead of 1000. That is because the range reserved for system users and groups, 0-999, might increase in the future and thus overlap with IDs of regular users.

• Files and directories are created with various permissions, dictated by the application used to create the file or directory. For example, the mkdir command creates directories with all permissions enabled. However, applications are prevented from granting certain permissions to newly created files, as specified by the user file-creation mask setting.

  The user file-creation mask can be controlled with the umask command. The default setting of the user file-creation mask for new users is defined by the UMASK variable in the /etc/login.defs configuration file on the installed system. If unset, it defaults to 022. This means that by default when an application creates a file, it is prevented from granting write permission to users other than the owner of the file. However, this can be overridden by other settings or scripts.

Options

• --startxonboot - Use a graphical login on the installed system.

Note

• Because Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 does not include the KDE Desktop Environment, do not use the --defaultdesktop= documented upstream.

Options

• --activate - activate this device in the installation environment.

  If you use the --activate option on a device that has already been activated (for example, an interface you configured with boot options so that the system could retrieve the Kickstart file) the device is reactivated to use the details specified in the Kickstart file.

  Use the --nodefroute option to prevent the device from using the default route.

• --no-activate - do not activate this device in the installation environment.

  By default, Anaconda activates the first network device in the Kickstart file regardless of the --activate option. You can disable the default setting by using the --no-activate option.

• --bootproto= - One of dhcp, bootp, ibft, or static. The default option is dhcp; the dhcp and bootp options are treated the same. To disable ipv4 configuration of the device, use --noipv4 option.

  Note

  This option configures the ipv4 configuration of the device. For ipv6 configuration use --ipv6 and --ipv6gateway options.

  The DHCP method uses a DHCP server system to obtain its networking configuration. The BOOTP method is similar, requiring a BOOTP server to supply the networking configuration. To direct a system to use DHCP:

  network --bootproto=dhcp

  To direct a machine to use BOOTP to obtain its networking configuration, use the following line in the Kickstart file:

  network --bootproto=bootp

  To direct a machine to use the configuration specified in iBFT, use:

  network --bootproto=ibft

  The static method requires that you specify at least the IP address and netmask in the Kickstart file. This information is static and is used during and after the installation.

  All static networking configuration information must be specified on one line; you cannot wrap lines by using a backslash (\) as you can on a command line.

  network --bootproto=static --ip=10.0.2.15 --netmask=255.255.255.0 --gateway=10.0.2.254 --nameserver=10.0.2.1

  You can also configure multiple nameservers at the same time. To do so, use the --nameserver= option once, and specify each of their IP addresses, separated by commas:

  network --bootproto=static --ip=10.0.2.15 --netmask=255.255.255.0 --gateway=10.0.2.254 --nameserver=192.168.2.1,192.168.3.1

• --device= - specifies the device to be configured (and eventually activated in Anaconda) with the network command.

  If the --device= option is missing on the first use of the network command, the value of the inst.ks.device= Anaconda boot option is used, if available. This is considered deprecated behavior; in most cases, you should always specify a --device= for every network command.

  Important

  NIC teaming is deprecated in {RHEL9}. Consider using the network bonding driver as an alternative. For details, see Configuring a network bond.

  The behavior of any subsequent network command in the same Kickstart file is unspecified if its --device= option is missing. Verify you specify this option for any network command beyond the first.

  You can specify a device to be activated in any of the following ways:

  • the device name of the interface, for example, em1
  • the MAC address of the interface, for example, 01:23:45:67:89:ab
  • the keyword link, which specifies the first interface with its link in the up state
  • the keyword bootif, which uses the MAC address that pxelinux set in the BOOTIF variable. Set IPAPPEND 2 in your pxelinux.cfg file to have pxelinux set the BOOTIF variable.

  For example:

  network --bootproto=dhcp --device=em1

• --ipv4-dns-search/--ipv6-dns-search - Set the DNS search domains manually. You must use these options together with --device options and mirror their respective NetworkManager properties, for example:

  network --device ens3 --ipv4-dns-search domain1.example.com,domain2.example.com

• --ipv4-ignore-auto-dns/--ipv6-ignore-auto-dns - Set to ignore the DNS settings from DHCP. You must use these options together with --device options and these options do not require any arguments.
• --ip= - IP address of the device.
• --ipv6= - IPv6 address of the device, in the form of address[/prefix length] - for example, 3ffe:ffff:0:1::1/128. If the prefix is omitted, 64 is used. You can also use auto for automatic configuration, or dhcp for DHCPv6-only configuration (no router advertisements).
• --gateway= - Default gateway as a single IPv4 address.
• --ipv6gateway= - Default gateway as a single IPv6 address.
• --nodefroute - Prevents the interface being set as the default route. Use this option when you activate additional devices with the --activate= option, for example, a NIC on a separate subnet for an iSCSI target.
• --nameserver= - DNS name server, as an IP address. To specify more than one name server, use this option once, and separate each IP address with a comma.
• --netmask= - Network mask for the installed system.

• --hostname= - Used to configure the target system’s host name. The host name can either be a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) in the format hostname.domainname, or a short host name without the domain. Many networks have a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) service that automatically supplies connected systems with a domain name. To allow the DHCP service to assign the domain name to this machine, specify only the short host name.

  When using static IP and host name configuration, it depends on the planned system use case whether to use a short name or FQDN. Red Hat Identity Management configures FQDN during provisioning but some 3rd party software products may require a short name. In either case, to ensure availability of both forms in all situations, add an entry for the host in /etc/hosts in the format IP FQDN short-alias.

  Host names can only contain alphanumeric characters and - or .. Host name should be equal to or less than 64 characters. Host names cannot start or end with - and .. To be compliant with DNS, each part of a FQDN should be equal to or less than 63 characters and the FQDN total length, including dots, should not exceed 255 characters.

  If you only want to configure the target system’s host name, use the --hostname option in the network command and do not include any other option.

  If you provide additional options when configuring the host name, the network command configures a device by using the options specified. If you do not specify which device to configure by using the --device option, the default --device link value is used. Additionally, if you do not specify the protocol by using the --bootproto option, the device is configured to use DHCP by default.

• --ethtool= - Specifies additional low-level settings for the network device which will be passed to the ethtool program.
• --onboot= - Whether or not to enable the device at boot time.
• --dhcpclass= - The DHCP class.
• --mtu= - The MTU of the device.
• --noipv4 - Disable IPv4 on this device.
• --noipv6 - Disable IPv6 on this device.

• --bondslaves= - When this option is used, the bond device specified by the --device= option is created using secondary devices defined in the --bondslaves= option. For example:

  network --device=bond0 --bondslaves=em1,em2

  The above command creates a bond device named bond0 by using the em1 and em2 interfaces as its secondary devices.

• --bondopts= - a list of optional parameters for a bonded interface, which is specified by using the --bondslaves= and --device= options. Options in this list must be separated by commas (“,”) or semicolons (“;”). If an option itself contains a comma, use a semicolon to separate the options. For example:

  network --bondopts=mode=active-backup,balance-rr;primary=eth1

  Important

  The --bondopts=mode= parameter only supports full mode names such as balance-rr or broadcast, not their numerical representations such as 0 or 3. For the list of available and supported modes, see the Configuring and Managing Networking Guide.

• --vlanid= - Specifies virtual LAN (VLAN) ID number (802.1q tag) for the device created by using the device specified in --device= as a parent. For example, network --device=em1 --vlanid=171 creates a virtual LAN device em1.171.

• --interfacename= - Specify a custom interface name for a virtual LAN device. This option should be used when the default name generated by the --vlanid= option is not desirable. This option must be used along with --vlanid=. For example:

  network --device=em1 --vlanid=171 --interfacename=vlan171

  The above command creates a virtual LAN interface named vlan171 on the em1 device with an ID of 171.

  The interface name can be arbitrary (for example, my-vlan), but in specific cases, the following conventions must be followed:

  • If the name contains a dot (.), it must take the form of NAME.ID. The NAME is arbitrary, but the ID must be the VLAN ID. For example: em1.171 or my-vlan.171.
  • Names starting with vlan must take the form of vlanID - for example, vlan171.

• --teamslaves= - Team device specified by the --device= option will be created by using secondary devices specified in this option. Secondary devices are separated by commas. A secondary device can be followed by its configuration, which is a single-quoted JSON string with double quotes escaped by the \ character. For example:

  network --teamslaves="p3p1'{\"prio\": -10, \"sticky\": true}',p3p2'{\"prio\": 100}'"

  See also the --teamconfig= option.

• --teamconfig= - Double-quoted team device configuration which is a JSON string with double quotes escaped by the \ character. The device name is specified by --device= option and its secondary devices and their configuration by --teamslaves= option. For example:

  network --device team0 --activate --bootproto static --ip=10.34.102.222 --netmask=255.255.255.0 --gateway=10.34.102.254 --nameserver=10.34.39.2 --teamslaves="p3p1'{\"prio\": -10, \"sticky\": true}',p3p2'{\"prio\": 100}'" --teamconfig="{\"runner\": {\"name\": \"activebackup\"}}"

  Important

  NIC teaming is deprecated in {RHEL9}. Consider using the network bonding driver as an alternative. For details, see Configuring a network bond.

• --bridgeslaves= - When this option is used, the network bridge with device name specified by using the --device= option will be created and devices defined in the --bridgeslaves= option will be added to the bridge. For example:

  network --device=bridge0 --bridgeslaves=em1

• --bridgeopts= - An optional comma-separated list of parameters for the bridged interface. Available values are stp, priority, forward-delay, hello-time, max-age, and ageing-time. For information about these parameters, see the bridge setting table in the nm-settings(5) man page or at Network Configuration Setting Specification.

  Also see the Configuring and managing networking document for general information about network bridging.

• --bindto=mac - Bind the device configuration file on the installed system to the device MAC address (HWADDR) instead of the default binding to the interface name (DEVICE). This option is independent of the --device= option - --bindto=mac will be applied even if the same network command also specifies a device name, link, or bootif.

Notes

• The ethN device names such as eth0 are no longer available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux due to changes in the naming scheme. For more information about the device naming scheme, see the upstream document Predictable Network Interface Names.
• If you used a Kickstart option or a boot option to specify an installation repository on a network, but no network is available at the start of the installation, the installation program displays the Network Configuration window to set up a network connection prior to displaying the Installation Summary window. For more details, see Configuring network and host name options.

Mandatory options

• domain - The domain to join.

Options

• --computer-ou=OU= - Provide the distinguished name of an organizational unit in order to create the computer account. The exact format of the distinguished name depends on the client software and membership software. The root DSE portion of the distinguished name can usually be left out.
• --no-password - Join automatically without a password.
• --one-time-password= - Join using a one-time password. This is not possible with all types of realm.
• --client-software= - Only join realms which can run this client software. Valid values include sssd and winbind. Not all realms support all values. By default, the client software is chosen automatically.
• --server-software= - Only join realms which can run this server software. Possible values include active-directory or freeipa.
• --membership-software= - Use this software when joining the realm. Valid values include samba and adcli. Not all realms support all values. By default, the membership software is chosen automatically.

Options

• --drives=driveN,…​ - Replace driveN with one of sda, sdb,…​, hda,…​ and so on.

• --only-use=driveN,…​ - Specifies a list of disks for the installation program to use. All other disks are ignored. For example, to use disk sda during installation and ignore all other disks:

  ignoredisk --only-use=sda

  To include a multipath device that does not use LVM:

  ignoredisk --only-use=disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-2416CD96995134CA5D787F00A5AA11017

  To include a multipath device that uses LVM:

  ignoredisk --only-use==/dev/disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-

  bootloader --location=mbr

Notes

• To ignore a multipath device that does not use logical volume manager (LVM), use the format disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-WWID, where WWID is the world-wide identifier for the device. For example, to ignore a disk with WWID 2416CD96995134CA5D787F00A5AA11017, use:

  ignoredisk --drives=disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-2416CD96995134CA5D787F00A5AA11017

• Never specify multipath devices by device names like mpatha. Device names such as this are not specific to a particular disk. The disk named /dev/mpatha during installation might not be the one that you expect it to be. Therefore, the clearpart command could target the wrong disk.

• The sdX (or /dev/sdX) format does not guarantee consistent device names across reboots, which can complicate the usage of some Kickstart commands. When a command requires a device node name, you can use any item from /dev/disk as an alternative. For example, instead of using the following device name:

  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=sda1

  You can use an entry similar to one of the following:

  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:05.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1
  
  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3160815AS_6RA0C882-part1

  By using this approach, the command always targets the same storage device. This is especially useful in large storage environments. To explore the available device names on the system, you can use the ls -lR /dev/disk command during the interactive installation. For more information about different ways to consistently refer to storage devices, see Overview of persistent naming attributes.

Options

• --all - Erases all partitions from the system.

  This option will erase all disks which can be reached by the installation program, including any attached network storage. Use this option with caution.

  You can prevent clearpart from wiping storage you want to preserve by using the --drives= option and specifying only the drives you want to clear, by attaching network storage later (for example, in the %post section of the Kickstart file), or by blocklisting the kernel modules used to access network storage.

• --drives= - Specifies which drives to clear partitions from. For example, the following clears all the partitions on the first two drives on the primary IDE controller:

  clearpart --drives=hda,hdb --all

  To clear a multipath device, use the format disk/by-id/scsi-WWID, where WWID is the world-wide identifier for the device. For example, to clear a disk with WWID 58095BEC5510947BE8C0360F604351918, use:

  clearpart --drives=disk/by-id/scsi-58095BEC5510947BE8C0360F604351918

  This format is preferable for all multipath devices, but if errors arise, multipath devices that do not use logical volume manager (LVM) can also be cleared using the format disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-WWID, where WWID is the world-wide identifier for the device. For example, to clear a disk with WWID 2416CD96995134CA5D787F00A5AA11017, use:

  clearpart --drives=disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-2416CD96995134CA5D787F00A5AA11017

  Never specify multipath devices by device names like mpatha. Device names such as this are not specific to a particular disk. The disk named /dev/mpatha during installation might not be the one that you expect it to be. Therefore, the clearpart command could target the wrong disk.

• --initlabel - Initializes a disk (or disks) by creating a default disk label for all disks in their respective architecture that have been designated for formatting (for example, msdos for x86). Because --initlabel can see all disks, it is important to ensure only those drives that are to be formatted are connected. Disks cleared by clearpart will have the label created even in case the --initlabel is not used.

  clearpart --initlabel --drives=names_of_disks

  For example:

  clearpart --initlabel --drives=dasda,dasdb,dasdc

• --list= - Specifies which partitions to clear. This option overrides the --all and --linux options if used. Can be used across different drives. For example:

  clearpart --list=sda2,sda3,sdb1

• --disklabel=LABEL - Set the default disklabel to use. Only disklabels supported for the platform will be accepted. For example, on the 64-bit Intel and AMD architectures, the msdos and gpt disklabels are accepted, but dasd is not accepted.
• --linux - Erases all Linux partitions.
• --none (default) - Do not remove any partitions.
• --cdl - Reformat any LDL DASDs to CDL format.

Notes

• The sdX (or /dev/sdX) format does not guarantee consistent device names across reboots, which can complicate the usage of some Kickstart commands. When a command requires a device node name, you can use any item from /dev/disk as an alternative. For example, instead of using the following device name:

  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=sda1

  You can use an entry similar to one of the following:

  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:05.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1
  
  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3160815AS_6RA0C882-part1

  By using this approach, the command always targets the same storage device. This is especially useful in large storage environments. To explore the available device names on the system, you can use the ls -lR /dev/disk command during the interactive installation. For more information about different ways to consistently refer to storage devices, see Overview of persistent naming attributes.

• If the clearpart command is used, then the part --onpart command cannot be used on a logical partition.

Notes

• On 64-bit IBM Z, if zerombr is specified, any Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) visible to the installation program which is not already low-level formatted is automatically low-level formatted with dasdfmt. The command also prevents user choice during interactive installations.
• If zerombr is not specified and there is at least one unformatted DASD visible to the installation program, a non-interactive Kickstart installation exits unsuccessfully.
• If zerombr is not specified and there is at least one unformatted DASD visible to the installation program, an interactive installation exits if the user does not agree to format all visible and unformatted DASDs. To circumvent this, only activate those DASDs that you will use during installation. You can always add more DASDs after installation is complete.

Options

• --append= - Specifies additional kernel parameters. To specify multiple parameters, separate them with spaces. For example:

  bootloader --location=mbr --append="hdd=ide-scsi ide=nodma"

  The rhgb and quiet parameters are automatically added when the plymouth package is installed, even if you do not specify them here or do not use the --append= command at all. To disable this behavior, explicitly disallow installation of plymouth:

  %packages
  -plymouth
  %end

  This option is useful for disabling mechanisms which were implemented to mitigate the Meltdown and Spectre speculative execution vulnerabilities found in most modern processors (CVE-2017-5754, CVE-2017-5753, and CVE-2017-5715). In some cases, these mechanisms may be unnecessary, and keeping them enabled causes decreased performance with no improvement in security. To disable these mechanisms, add the options to do so into your Kickstart file - for example, bootloader --append="nopti noibrs noibpb" on AMD64/Intel 64 systems.

  Warning

  Ensure your system is not at risk of attack before disabling any of the vulnerability mitigation mechanisms. See the Red Hat vulnerability response article for information about the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities.

• --boot-drive= - Specifies which drive the boot loader should be written to, and therefore which drive the computer will boot from. If you use a multipath device as the boot drive, specify the device by using its disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-WWID name.

  Important

  The --boot-drive= option is currently being ignored in Red Hat Enterprise Linux installations on 64-bit IBM Z systems by using the zipl boot loader. When zipl is installed, it determines the boot drive on its own.

• --leavebootorder - This option is applicable for Power and UEFI systems. The installation program adds Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 to the list of the installed systems in UEFI. It does not add the installed system to the boot order. All existing boot entries as well as their order are preserved.

• --driveorder= - Specifies which drive is first in the BIOS boot order. For example:

  bootloader --driveorder=sda,hda

• --location= - Specifies where the boot record is written. Valid values are the following:

  • mbr - The default option. Depends on whether the drive uses the Master Boot Record (MBR) or GUID Partition Table (GPT) scheme:

    On a GPT-formatted disk, this option installs stage 1.5 of the boot loader into the BIOS boot partition.

    On an MBR-formatted disk, stage 1.5 is installed into the empty space between the MBR and the first partition.

  • partition - Install the boot loader on the first sector of the partition containing the kernel.
  • none - Do not install the boot loader.

  In most cases, this option does not need to be specified.

• --nombr - Do not install the boot loader to the MBR.

• --password= - If using GRUB2, set the boot loader password to the one specified with this option. This should be used to restrict access to the GRUB2 shell, where arbitrary kernel options can be passed.

  If a password is specified, GRUB2 also asks for a user name. The user name is always root.

• --iscrypted - Normally, when you specify a boot loader password by using the --password= option, it is stored in the Kickstart file in plain text. If you want to encrypt the password, use this option and an encrypted password.

  To generate an encrypted password, use the grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2 command, enter the password you want to use, and copy the command’s output (the hash starting with grub.pbkdf2) into the Kickstart file. An example bootloader Kickstart entry with an encrypted password looks similar to the following:

  bootloader --iscrypted --password=grub.pbkdf2.sha512.10000.5520C6C9832F3AC3D149AC0B24BE69E2D4FB0DBEEDBD29CA1D30A044DE2645C4C7A291E585D4DC43F8A4D82479F8B95CA4BA4381F8550510B75E8E0BB2938990.C688B6F0EF935701FF9BD1A8EC7FE5BD2333799C98F28420C5CC8F1A2A233DE22C83705BB614EA17F3FDFDF4AC2161CEA3384E56EB38A2E39102F5334C47405E

• --timeout= - Specifies the amount of time the boot loader waits before booting the default option (in seconds).
• --default= - Sets the default boot image in the boot loader configuration.
• --extlinux - Use the extlinux boot loader instead of GRUB2. This option only works on systems supported by extlinux.
• --disabled - This option is a stronger version of --location=none. While --location=none simply disables boot loader installation, --disabled disables boot loader installation and also disables installation of the package containing the boot loader, thus saving space.

Notes

• Red Hat recommends setting up a boot loader password on every system. An unprotected boot loader can allow a potential attacker to modify the system’s boot options and gain unauthorized access to the system.
• In some cases, a special partition is required to install the boot loader on AMD64, Intel 64, and 64-bit ARM systems. The type and size of this partition depends on whether the disk you are installing the boot loader to use the Master Boot Record (MBR) or a GUID Partition Table (GPT) schema. For more information, see the Configuring boot loader section.

• The sdX (or /dev/sdX) format does not guarantee consistent device names across reboots, which can complicate the usage of some Kickstart commands. When a command requires a device node name, you can use any item from /dev/disk as an alternative. For example, instead of using the following device name:

  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=sda1

  You can use an entry similar to one of the following:

  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:05.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1
  
  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3160815AS_6RA0C882-part1

  By using this approach, the command always targets the same storage device. This is especially useful in large storage environments. To explore the available device names on the system, you can use the ls -lR /dev/disk command during the interactive installation. For more information about different ways to consistently refer to storage devices, see Overview of persistent naming attributes.

Options

• --type= - Selects one of the predefined automatic partitioning schemes you want to use. Accepts the following values:

  • lvm: The LVM partitioning scheme.
  • plain: Regular partitions with no LVM.
  • thinp: The LVM Thin Provisioning partitioning scheme.
• --fstype= - Selects one of the available file system types. The available values are ext2, ext3, ext4, xfs, and vfat. The default file system is xfs.
• --nohome - Disables automatic creation of the /home partition.
• --nolvm - Do not use LVM for automatic partitioning. This option is equal to --type=plain.
• --noboot - Do not create a /boot partition.
• --noswap - Do not create a swap partition.

• --encrypted - Encrypts all partitions with Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS). This is equivalent to checking the Encrypt partitions check box on the initial partitioning screen during a manual graphical installation.

  Note

  When encrypting one or more partitions, Anaconda attempts to gather 256 bits of entropy to ensure the partitions are encrypted securely. Gathering entropy can take some time - the process will stop after a maximum of 10 minutes, regardless of whether sufficient entropy has been gathered.

  The process can be sped up by interacting with the installation system (typing on the keyboard or moving the mouse). If you are installing in a virtual machine, you can also attach a virtio-rng device (a virtual random number generator) to the guest.

• --luks-version=LUKS_VERSION - Specifies which version of LUKS format should be used to encrypt the filesystem. This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --passphrase= - Provides a default system-wide passphrase for all encrypted devices.
• --escrowcert=URL_of_X.509_certificate - Stores data encryption keys of all encrypted volumes as files in /root, encrypted by using the X.509 certificate from the URL specified with URL_of_X.509_certificate. The keys are stored as a separate file for each encrypted volume. This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --backuppassphrase - Adds a randomly-generated passphrase to each encrypted volume. Store these passphrases in separate files in /root, encrypted by using the X.509 certificate specified with --escrowcert. This option is only meaningful if --escrowcert is specified.
• --cipher= - Specifies the type of encryption to use if the Anaconda default aes-xts-plain64 is not satisfactory. You must use this option together with the --encrypted option; by itself it has no effect. Available types of encryption are listed in the Security hardening document, but Red Hat strongly recommends using either aes-xts-plain64 or aes-cbc-essiv:sha256.
• --pbkdf=PBKDF - Sets Password-Based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF) algorithm for LUKS keyslot. See also the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --pbkdf-memory=PBKDF_MEMORY - Sets the memory cost for PBKDF. See also the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --pbkdf-time=PBKDF_TIME - Sets the number of milliseconds to spend with PBKDF passphrase processing. See also --iter-time in the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified, and is mutually exclusive with --pbkdf-iterations.
• --pbkdf-iterations=PBKDF_ITERATIONS - Sets the number of iterations directly and avoids PBKDF benchmark. See also --pbkdf-force-iterations in the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified, and is mutually exclusive with --pbkdf-time.

Notes

• The autopart option cannot be used together with the part/partition, raid, logvol, or volgroup options in the same Kickstart file.
• The autopart command is not mandatory, but you must include it if there are no part or mount commands in your Kickstart script.
• It is recommended to use the autopart --nohome Kickstart option when installing on a single FBA DASD of the CMS type. This ensures that the installation program does not create a separate /home partition. The installation then proceeds successfully.
• If you lose the LUKS passphrase, any encrypted partitions and their data is completely inaccessible. There is no way to recover a lost passphrase. However, you can save encryption passphrases with the --escrowcert and create backup encryption passphrases with the --backuppassphrase options.
• Ensure that the disk sector sizes are consistent when using autopart, autopart --type=lvm, or autopart=thinp.

Options

• --add-boot - Creates a separate /boot partition in addition to the platform-specific partition created by the base command.

Note

• This command cannot be used together with autopart, because autopart does everything the reqpart command does and, in addition, creates other partitions or logical volumes such as / and swap. In contrast with autopart, this command only creates platform-specific partitions and leaves the rest of the drive empty, allowing you to create a custom layout.

Options

• mntpoint - Where the partition is mounted. The value must be of one of the following forms:

  • /path

    For example, /, /usr, /home

  • swap

    The partition is used as swap space.

    To determine the size of the swap partition automatically, use the --recommended option:

    swap --recommended

    The size assigned will be effective but not precisely calibrated for your system.

    To determine the size of the swap partition automatically but also allow extra space for your system to hibernate, use the --hibernation option:

    swap --hibernation

    The size assigned will be equivalent to the swap space assigned by --recommended plus the amount of RAM on your system. For the swap sizes assigned by these commands, see Recommended Partitioning Scheme for AMD64, Intel 64, and 64-bit ARM systems.

  • raid.id

    The partition is used for software RAID (see raid).

  • pv.id

    The partition is used for LVM (see logvol).

  • biosboot

    The partition will be used for a BIOS Boot partition. A 1 MiB BIOS boot partition is necessary on BIOS-based AMD64 and Intel 64 systems using a GUID Partition Table (GPT); the boot loader will be installed into it. It is not necessary on UEFI systems. See also the bootloader command.

  • /boot/efi

    An EFI System Partition. A 50 MiB EFI partition is necessary on UEFI-based AMD64, Intel 64, and 64-bit ARM; the recommended size is 200 MiB. It is not necessary on BIOS systems. See also the bootloader command.

• --size= - The minimum partition size in MiB. Specify an integer value here such as 500 (do not include the unit). Installation fails if size specified is too small. Set the --size value as the minimum amount of space you require. For size recommendations, see Recommended Partitioning Scheme.
• --grow - Specifies the partition to grow to fill available space (if any), or up to the maximum size setting, if one is specified. If you use --grow= without setting --maxsize= on a swap partition, Anaconda limits the maximum size of the swap partition. For systems that have less than 2 GiB of physical memory, the imposed limit is twice the amount of physical memory. For systems with more than 2 GiB, the imposed limit is the size of physical memory plus 2GiB.
• --maxsize= - The maximum partition size in MiB when the partition is set to grow. Specify an integer value here such as 500 (do not include the unit).
• --noformat - Specifies that the partition should not be formatted, for use with the --onpart command.

• --onpart= or --usepart= - Specifies the device on which to place the partition. Uses an existing blank device and formats it to the new specified type. For example:

  partition /home --onpart=hda1

  puts /home on /dev/hda1.

  These options can also add a partition to a logical volume. For example:

  partition pv.1 --onpart=hda2

  The device must already exist on the system; the --onpart option will not create it.

  It is also possible to specify an entire drive, rather than a partition, in which case Anaconda will format and use the drive without creating a partition table. However, installation of GRUB2 is not supported on a device formatted in this way, and must be placed on a drive with a partition table.

  partition pv.1 --onpart=hdb

• --ondisk= or --ondrive= - Creates a partition (specified by the part command) on an existing disk.This command always creates a partition. Forces the partition to be created on a particular disk. For example, --ondisk=sdb puts the partition on the second SCSI disk on the system.

  To specify a multipath device that does not use logical volume manager (LVM), use the format disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-WWID, where WWID is the world-wide identifier for the device. For example, to specify a disk with WWID 2416CD96995134CA5D787F00A5AA11017, use:

  part / --fstype=xfs --grow --asprimary --size=8192 --ondisk=disk/by-id/dm-uuid-mpath-2416CD96995134CA5D787F00A5AA11017

  Warning

  Never specify multipath devices by device names like mpatha. Device names such as this are not specific to a particular disk. The disk named /dev/mpatha during installation might not be the one that you expect it to be. Therefore, the part command could target the wrong disk.

• --asprimary - Forces the partition to be allocated as a primary partition. If the partition cannot be allocated as primary (usually due to too many primary partitions being already allocated), the partitioning process fails. This option only makes sense when the disk uses a Master Boot Record (MBR); for GUID Partition Table (GPT)-labeled disks this option has no meaning.
• --fsprofile= - Specifies a usage type to be passed to the program that makes a filesystem on this partition. A usage type defines a variety of tuning parameters to be used when making a filesystem. For this option to work, the filesystem must support the concept of usage types and there must be a configuration file that lists valid types. For ext2, ext3, ext4, this configuration file is /etc/mke2fs.conf.

• --mkfsoptions= - Specifies additional parameters to be passed to the program that makes a filesystem on this partition. This is similar to --fsprofile but works for all filesystems, not just the ones that support the profile concept. No processing is done on the list of arguments, so they must be supplied in a format that can be passed directly to the mkfs program. This means multiple options should be comma-separated or surrounded by double quotes, depending on the filesystem. For example,

  part /opt/foo1 --size=512 --fstype=ext4 --mkfsoptions="-O ^has_journal,^flex_bg,^metadata_csum"
  
  part /opt/foo2 --size=512 --fstype=xfs --mkfsoptions="-m bigtime=0,finobt=0"

• --fstype= - Sets the file system type for the partition. Valid values are xfs, ext2, ext3, ext4, swap, vfat, efi and biosboot.

• --fsoptions - Specifies a free form string of options to be used when mounting the filesystem. This string will be copied into the /etc/fstab file of the installed system and should be enclosed in quotes.

  Note

  In the EFI system partition (/boot/efi), anaconda hard codes the value and ignores the users specified --fsoptions values.

• --label= - assign a label to an individual partition.
• --recommended - Determine the size of the partition automatically. For details about the recommended scheme, see Recommended Partitioning Scheme for AMD64, Intel 64, and 64-bit ARM. This option can only be used for partitions which result in a file system such as the /boot partition and swap space. It cannot be used to create LVM physical volumes or RAID members.
• --onbiosdisk - Forces the partition to be created on a particular disk as discovered by the BIOS.

• --encrypted - Specifies that this partition should be encrypted with Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) by using the passphrase provided in the --passphrase option. If you do not specify a passphrase, Anaconda uses the default, system-wide passphrase set with the autopart --passphrase command, or stops the installation and prompts you to provide a passphrase if no default is set.

  Note

  When encrypting one or more partitions, Anaconda attempts to gather 256 bits of entropy to ensure the partitions are encrypted securely. Gathering entropy can take some time - the process will stop after a maximum of 10 minutes, regardless of whether sufficient entropy has been gathered.

  The process can be sped up by interacting with the installation system (typing on the keyboard or moving the mouse). If you are installing in a virtual machine, you can also attach a virtio-rng device (a virtual random number generator) to the guest.

• --luks-version=LUKS_VERSION - Specifies which version of LUKS format should be used to encrypt the filesystem. This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --passphrase= - Specifies the passphrase to use when encrypting this partition. You must use this option together with the --encrypted option; by itself it has no effect.
• --cipher= - Specifies the type of encryption to use if the Anaconda default aes-xts-plain64 is not satisfactory. You must use this option together with the --encrypted option; by itself it has no effect. Available types of encryption are listed in the Security hardening document, but Red Hat strongly recommends using either aes-xts-plain64 or aes-cbc-essiv:sha256.
• --escrowcert=URL_of_X.509_certificate - Store data encryption keys of all encrypted partitions as files in /root, encrypted by using the X.509 certificate from the URL specified with URL_of_X.509_certificate. The keys are stored as a separate file for each encrypted partition. This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --backuppassphrase - Add a randomly-generated passphrase to each encrypted partition. Store these passphrases in separate files in /root, encrypted by using the X.509 certificate specified with --escrowcert. This option is only meaningful if --escrowcert is specified.
• --pbkdf=PBKDF - Sets Password-Based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF) algorithm for LUKS keyslot. See also the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --pbkdf-memory=PBKDF_MEMORY - Sets the memory cost for PBKDF. See also the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --pbkdf-time=PBKDF_TIME - Sets the number of milliseconds to spend with PBKDF passphrase processing. See also --iter-time in the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified, and is mutually exclusive with --pbkdf-iterations.
• --pbkdf-iterations=PBKDF_ITERATIONS - Sets the number of iterations directly and avoids PBKDF benchmark. See also --pbkdf-force-iterations in the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified, and is mutually exclusive with --pbkdf-time.
• --resize= - Resize an existing partition. When using this option, specify the target size (in MiB) by using the --size= option and the target partition by using the --onpart= option.

Notes

• The part command is not mandatory, but you must include either part, autopart or mount in your Kickstart script.
• If partitioning fails for any reason, diagnostic messages appear on virtual console 3.
• All partitions created are formatted as part of the installation process unless --noformat and --onpart are used.

• The sdX (or /dev/sdX) format does not guarantee consistent device names across reboots, which can complicate the usage of some Kickstart commands. When a command requires a device node name, you can use any item from /dev/disk as an alternative. For example, instead of using the following device name:

  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=sda1

  You can use an entry similar to one of the following:

  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:05.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1
  
  part / --fstype=xfs --onpart=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3160815AS_6RA0C882-part1

  By using this approach, the command always targets the same storage device. This is especially useful in large storage environments. To explore the available device names on the system, you can use the ls -lR /dev/disk command during the interactive installation. For more information about different ways to consistently refer to storage devices, see Overview of persistent naming attributes.

• If you lose the LUKS passphrase, any encrypted partitions and their data is completely inaccessible. There is no way to recover a lost passphrase. However, you can save encryption passphrases with the --escrowcert and create backup encryption passphrases with the --backuppassphrase options.

Options

• mntpoint - Location where the RAID file system is mounted. If it is /, the RAID level must be 1 unless a boot partition (/boot) is present. If a boot partition is present, the /boot partition must be level 1 and the root (/) partition can be any of the available types. The partitions* (which denotes that multiple partitions can be listed) lists the RAID identifiers to add to the RAID array.

  Important
  • On IBM Power Systems, if a RAID device has been prepared and has not been reformatted during the installation, ensure that the RAID metadata version is 0.90 or 1.0 if you intend to put the /boot and PReP partitions on the RAID device. The mdadm metadata versions 1.1 and 1.2 are not supported for the /boot and PReP partitions.
  • The PReP Boot partitions are not required on PowerNV systems.
• --level= - RAID level to use (0, 1, 4, 5, 6, or 10).

• --device= - Name of the RAID device to use - for example, --device=root.

  Important

  Do not use mdraid names in the form of md0 - these names are not guaranteed to be persistent. Instead, use meaningful names such as root or swap. Using meaningful names creates a symbolic link from /dev/md/name to whichever /dev/mdX node is assigned to the array.

  If you have an old (v0.90 metadata) array that you cannot assign a name to, you can specify the array by a filesystem label or UUID. For example, --device=LABEL=root or --device=UUID=93348e56-4631-d0f0-6f5b-45c47f570b88.

  You can use the UUID of the file system on the RAID device or UUID of the RAID device itself. The UUID of the RAID device should be in the 8-4-4-4-12 format. UUID reported by mdadm is in the 8:8:8:8 format which needs to be changed. For example 93348e56:4631d0f0:6f5b45c4:7f570b88 should be changed to 93348e56-4631-d0f0-6f5b-45c47f570b88.

• --chunksize= - Sets the chunk size of a RAID storage in KiB. In certain situations, using a different chunk size than the default (512 Kib) can improve the performance of the RAID.
• --spares= - Specifies the number of spare drives allocated for the RAID array. Spare drives are used to rebuild the array in case of drive failure.
• --fsprofile= - Specifies a usage type to be passed to the program that makes a filesystem on this partition. A usage type defines a variety of tuning parameters to be used when making a filesystem. For this option to work, the filesystem must support the concept of usage types and there must be a configuration file that lists valid types. For ext2, ext3, and ext4, this configuration file is /etc/mke2fs.conf.
• --fstype= - Sets the file system type for the RAID array. Valid values are xfs, ext2, ext3, ext4, swap, and vfat.
• --fsoptions= - Specifies a free form string of options to be used when mounting the filesystem. This string will be copied into the /etc/fstab file of the installed system and should be enclosed in quotes. In the EFI system partition (/boot/efi), anaconda hard codes the value and ignores the users specified --fsoptions values.

• --mkfsoptions= - Specifies additional parameters to be passed to the program that makes a filesystem on this partition. No processing is done on the list of arguments, so they must be supplied in a format that can be passed directly to the mkfs program. This means multiple options should be comma-separated or surrounded by double quotes, depending on the filesystem. For example,

  part /opt/foo1 --size=512 --fstype=ext4 --mkfsoptions="-O ^has_journal,^flex_bg,^metadata_csum"
  
  part /opt/foo2 --size=512 --fstype=xfs --mkfsoptions="-m bigtime=0,finobt=0"

• --label= - Specify the label to give to the filesystem to be made. If the given label is already in use by another filesystem, a new label will be created.
• --noformat - Use an existing RAID device and do not format the RAID array.
• --useexisting - Use an existing RAID device and reformat it.

• --encrypted - Specifies that this RAID device should be encrypted with Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) by using the passphrase provided in the --passphrase option. If you do not specify a passphrase, Anaconda uses the default, system-wide passphrase set with the autopart --passphrase command, or stops the installation and prompts you to provide a passphrase if no default is set.

  Note

  When encrypting one or more partitions, Anaconda attempts to gather 256 bits of entropy to ensure the partitions are encrypted securely. Gathering entropy can take some time - the process will stop after a maximum of 10 minutes, regardless of whether sufficient entropy has been gathered.

  The process can be sped up by interacting with the installation system (typing on the keyboard or moving the mouse). If you are installing in a virtual machine, you can also attach a virtio-rng device (a virtual random number generator) to the guest.

• --luks-version=LUKS_VERSION - Specifies which version of LUKS format should be used to encrypt the filesystem. This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --cipher= - Specifies the type of encryption to use if the Anaconda default aes-xts-plain64 is not satisfactory. You must use this option together with the --encrypted option; by itself it has no effect. Available types of encryption are listed in the Security hardening document, but Red Hat strongly recommends using either aes-xts-plain64 or aes-cbc-essiv:sha256.
• --passphrase= - Specifies the passphrase to use when encrypting this RAID device. You must use this option together with the --encrypted option; by itself it has no effect.
• --escrowcert=URL_of_X.509_certificate - Store the data encryption key for this device in a file in /root, encrypted by using the X.509 certificate from the URL specified with URL_of_X.509_certificate. This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --backuppassphrase - Add a randomly-generated passphrase to this device. Store the passphrase in a file in /root, encrypted by using the X.509 certificate specified with --escrowcert. This option is only meaningful if --escrowcert is specified.
• --pbkdf=PBKDF - Sets Password-Based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF) algorithm for LUKS keyslot. See also the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --pbkdf-memory=PBKDF_MEMORY - Sets the memory cost for PBKDF. See also the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified.
• --pbkdf-time=PBKDF_TIME - Sets the number of milliseconds to spend with PBKDF passphrase processing. See also --iter-time in the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified, and is mutually exclusive with --pbkdf-iterations.
• --pbkdf-iterations=PBKDF_ITERATIONS - Sets the number of iterations directly and avoids PBKDF benchmark. See also --pbkdf-force-iterations in the man page cryptsetup(8). This option is only meaningful if --encrypted is specified, and is mutually exclusive with --pbkdf-time.

Note

• If you lose the LUKS passphrase, any encrypted partitions and their data is completely inaccessible. There is no way to recover a lost passphrase. However, you can save encryption passphrases with the --escrowcert and create backup encryption passphrases with the --backuppassphrase options.

Mandatory options

• name - Name of the new volume group.

Options

• partition - Physical volume partitions to use as backing storage for the volume group.
• --noformat - Use an existing volume group and do not format it.

• --useexisting - Use an existing volume group and reformat it. If you use this option, do not specify a partition. For example:

  volgroup rhel00 --useexisting --noformat

• --pesize= - Set the size of the volume group’s physical extents in KiB. The default value is 4096 (4 MiB), and the minimum value is 1024 (1 MiB).
• --reserved-space= - Specify an amount of space to leave unused in a volume group in MiB. Applicable only to newly created volume groups.
• --reserved-percent= - Specify a percentage of total volume group space to leave unused. Applicable only to newly created volume groups.

Notes

• Create the partition first, then create the logical volume group, and then create the logical volume. For example:

  part pv.01 --size 10000
  volgroup my_volgrp pv.01
  logvol / --vgname=my_volgrp --size=2000 --name=root

• Do not use the dash (-) character in logical volume and volume group names when installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux by using Kickstart. If this character is used, the installation finishes normally, but the /dev/mapper/ directory will list these volumes and volume groups with every dash doubled. For example, a volume group named volgrp-01 containing a logical volume named logvol-01 will be listed as /dev/mapper/volgrp--01-logvol--01.

  This limitation only applies to newly created logical volume and volume group names. If you are reusing existing ones by using the --noformat option, their names will not be changed.

Notes

• Do not use the dash (-) character in logical volume and volume group names when installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux by using Kickstart. If this character is used, the installation finishes normally, but the /dev/mapper/ directory will list these volumes and volume groups with every dash doubled. For example, a volume group named volgrp-01 containing a logical volume named logvol-01 will be listed as /dev/mapper/volgrp—​01-logvol—​01.

  This limitation only applies to newly created logical volume and volume group names. If you are reusing existing ones by using the --noformat option, their names will not be changed.

• If you lose the LUKS passphrase, any encrypted partitions and their data is completely inaccessible. There is no way to recover a lost passphrase. However, you can save encryption passphrases with the --escrowcert and create backup encryption passphrases with the --backuppassphrase options.

Examples

• Create the partition first, create the logical volume group, and then create the logical volume:

  part pv.01 --size 3000
  volgroup myvg pv.01
  logvol / --vgname=myvg --size=2000 --name=rootvol

• Create the partition first, create the logical volume group, and then create the logical volume to occupy 90% of the remaining space in the volume group:

  part pv.01 --size 1 --grow
  volgroup myvg pv.01
  logvol / --vgname=myvg --name=rootvol --percent=90

Options

• vg_name/lv_name - Sets the name of the volume group and logical volume to create the snapshot from.
• --name=snapshot_name - Sets the name of the snapshot. This name must be unique within the volume group.
• --when=pre-install|post-install - Sets if the snapshot is created before the installation begins or after the installation is completed.

Mandatory options:

• device - The block device to mount.
• mountpoint - Where to mount the device. It must be a valid mount point, such as / or /usr, or none if the device is unmountable (for example swap).

Optional options:

• --reformat= - Specifies a new format (such as ext4) to which the device should be reformatted.
• --mkfsoptions= - Specifies additional options to be passed to the command which creates the new file system specified in --reformat=. The list of options provided here is not processed, so they must be specified in a format that can be passed directly to the mkfs program. The list of options should be either comma-separated or surrounded by double quotes, depending on the file system. See the mkfs man page for the file system you want to create (for example mkfs.ext4(8) or mkfs.xfs(8)) for specific details.
• --mountoptions= - Specifies a free form string that contains options to be used when mounting the file system. The string will be copied to the /etc/fstab file on the installed system and should be enclosed in double quotes. See the mount(8) man page for a full list of mount options, and fstab(5) for basics.

Notes

• Unlike most other storage configuration commands in Kickstart, mount does not require you to describe the entire storage configuration in the Kickstart file. You only need to ensure that the described block device exists on the system. However, if you want to create the storage stack with all the devices mounted, you must use other commands such as part to do so.
• You can not use mount together with other storage-related commands such as part, logvol, or autopart in the same Kickstart file.

Options

• --secure-boot - Enables secure boot if it is supported by the installing system.

• --force-secure-boot - Enables secure boot unconditionally.

• --no-secure-boot - Disables secure boot.

Options

• --nic= (required) - The name of the device to be activated.
• --dcb= - Establish Data Center Bridging (DCB) settings.
• --autovlan - Discover VLANs automatically. This option is enabled by default.

Mandatory options

• --ipaddr= (required) - the IP address of the target to connect to.

Optional options

• --port= (required) - the port number. If not present, --port=3260 is used automatically by default.
• --target= - the target IQN (iSCSI Qualified Name).
• --iface= - bind the connection to a specific network interface instead of using the default one determined by the network layer. Once used, it must be specified in all instances of the iscsi command in the entire Kickstart file.
• --user= - the user name required to authenticate with the target
• --password= - the password that corresponds with the user name specified for the target
• --reverse-user= - the user name required to authenticate with the initiator from a target that uses reverse CHAP authentication
• --reverse-password= - the password that corresponds with the user name specified for the initiator

Notes

• If you use the iscsi command, you must also assign a name to the iSCSI node by using the iscsiname command. The iscsiname command must appear before the iscsi command in the Kickstart file.
• Wherever possible, configure iSCSI storage in the system BIOS or firmware (iBFT for Intel systems) rather than use the iscsi command. Anaconda automatically detects and uses disks configured in BIOS or firmware and no special configuration is necessary in the Kickstart file.
• If you must use the iscsi command, ensure that networking is activated at the beginning of the installation, and that the iscsi command appears in the Kickstart file before you refer to iSCSI disks with commands such as clearpart or ignoredisk.

Options

• iqname - Name to assign to the iSCSI node.

Note

• If you use the iscsi command in your Kickstart file, you must specify iscsiname earlier in the Kickstart file.

Options

• --devnum= - The device number (zFCP adapter device bus ID).
• --wwpn= - The device’s World Wide Port Name (WWPN). Takes the form of a 16-digit number, preceded by 0x.
• --fcplun= - The device’s Logical Unit Number (LUN). Takes the form of a 16-digit number, preceded by 0x.

Options

• --enable - Enable kdump on the installed system.
• --disable - Disable kdump on the installed system.

• --reserve-mb= - The amount of memory you want to reserve for kdump, in MiB. For example:

  %addon com_redhat_kdump --enable --reserve-mb=128
  %end

  You can also specify auto instead of a numeric value. In that case, the installation program will determine the amount of memory automatically based on the criteria described in the Memory requirements for kdump section of the Managing, monitoring and updating the kernel document.

  If you enable kdump and do not specify a --reserve-mb= option, the value auto will be used.

• --enablefadump - Enable firmware-assisted dumping on systems which allow it (notably, IBM Power Systems servers).

• Mount file systems as read-only
• Blocklist or add a driver provided on a driver disc
• Install or upgrade system packages
• Manage partitions

Options

• --nomount or --romount - Controls how the installed system is mounted in the rescue environment. By default, the installation program finds your system and mount it in read-write mode, telling you where it has performed this mount. You can optionally select to not mount anything (the --nomount option) or mount in read-only mode (the --romount option). Only one of these two options can be used.