8.6. Customization of boot parameters

Network configuration must be provided if network access will be required during the installation. If you plan to perform an unattended (Kickstart-based) installation by using only local media such as a disk, network configuration can be omitted.

At least one storage device must always be configured for text mode installations.

The rd.dasd= option takes a Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) adapter device bus identifier. For multiple DASDs, specify the parameter multiple times, or use a comma separated list of bus IDs. To specify a range of DASDs, specify the first and the last bus ID.

For example:

rd.dasd=0.0.0200 rd.dasd=0.0.0202(ro),0.0.0203(ro:failfast),0.0.0205-0.0.0207

All DASDs that were specified using the rd.dasd= kernel argument during the installation process are automatically activated on the installed system. This activation occurs regardless of whether the DASDs were used for partitioning during the installation. All disks made visible to the installer via rd.dasd= will be online and available on the first boot of the installed system.

The rd.zfcp= option takes a SCSI over FCP (zFCP) adapter device bus identifier, a target world wide port name (WWPN), and an FCP LUN, then activates one path to a SCSI disk. This parameter needs to be specified at least twice to activate multiple paths to the same disk. This parameter can be specified multiple times to activate multiple disks, each with multiple paths.

Since 10, a target world wide port name (WWPN) and an FCP LUN have to be provided only if the zFCP device is not configured in NPIV mode or when auto LUN scanning is disabled by the zfcp.allow_lun_scan=0 kernel module parameter. It provides access to all SCSI devices found in the storage area network attached to the FCP device with the specified bus ID. This parameter needs to be specified at least twice to activate multiple paths to the same disks.

rd.zfcp=0.0.4000,0x5005076300C213e9,0x5022000000000000
rd.zfcp=0.0.4000

If you are using a Kickstart file to perform an automatic installation, you must always specify the location of the Kickstart file by using the inst.ks= option. For an unattended, fully automatic Kickstart installation, the inst.cmdline option is also useful. An example customized generic.prm file containing all mandatory parameters look similar to the following example:

ro ramdisk_size=40000 cio_ignore=all,!condev
inst.repo=http://example.com/path/to/repository
rd.znet=qeth,0.0.0600,0.0.0601,0.0.0602,layer2=1,portno=0,portname=foo
ip=192.168.17.115::192.168.17.254:24:foobar.systemz.example.com:enc600:none
nameserver=192.168.17.1
rd.dasd=0.0.0200 rd.dasd=0.0.0202
rd.zfcp=0.0.4000,0x5005076300c213e9,0x5022000000000000
rd.zfcp=0.0.5000,0x5005076300dab3e9,0x5022000000000000
inst.ks=http://example.com/path/to/kickstart

Some installation methods also require a file with a mapping of the location of installation data in the file system of the HMC DVD or FTP server and the memory locations where the data is to be copied.

The file is typically named generic.ins, and contains file names for the initial RAM disk, kernel image, and parameter file (generic.prm) and a memory location for each file. An example generic.ins will look similar to the following example:

images/kernel.img 0x00000000
images/initrd.img 0x02000000
images/genericdvd.prm 0x00010480
images/initrd.addrsize 0x00010408

A valid generic.ins file is provided by Red Hat along with all other files required to boot the installer. Modify this file only if you want to, for example, load a different kernel version than default.