Kickstart provides a means of rapid, unattended deployment of the OS. The process briefly consists of:

• Server is booted using PXE (network boot) to syslinux provided by tftp.
  
• Desired image is selected from the menu screen presented to the user.
  
• OS is deployed to server.
  
• Post-installation script makes appropriate changes to configurations and installs any additional packages requried.
  
• Build is complete.
  

Kickstart is currently running on ops01.

Files can be browsed at http://192.168.123.45/ks

The following files are worthy of note:

After using the *.ks kickstart file to configure the server, at the bottom of the ks file is a command to wget and extract http://KS_SERVER/ks/ks_post_install.tar to /root/ks_post_install. config_server.sh is run. This is the main file containing all directives which makes the following changes: \\Note the variables at the top of the script.

1. Sets timezone to UTC
2. Syncs clock to internal NTP servers
3. Set modprobe aliases for bnx2 and be2net NICs
4. Set networking:
5. Hostname
6. IP Address, Netmask, Gateway
7. Disable IPv6
8. Hosts file (and additional entries only for DB servers)
9. /etc/resolve.conf
10. Create NIC bonding for eth0/1 (bond0) (mode=1)
11. DB Only: create bond1 for eth2/3 (mode=0)
12. Disable uncessary services (chkconfig off)
13. Set permissions on some system dirs to tighten security
14. RGS servers only: set some RGS specific OS parameters
15. Create users and groups where applicable: wworks, nagios, gi-hpsim with consistent GIDs and UIDs
16. Set .ssh dir such as SSH keys for wworks, nagios
17. Configure server for LDAP authentication
18. Set sudoers file
19. Set PS1 prompt, using RED colour for root, green for non-root. (export PS1=“\u@\h \$ ”)
20. Tighten sshd security and disable remote root login.
21. Set login prompt (issue/banner)
22. Set boot resolution to 1024×768
23. Configure exim
24. Set NTP sources
25. Configure local yum repo
26. Configure Spacewalk and register server
27. Configure Syslog to gi-log01
28. For servers with HBA, add recommended QLogic/HP modprobe.conf kernel options
29. Configure multipath.conf with recommended HP parameters for EVA8400 or MSA P2000 G3
30. DB Only: Retrieve and configure Oracle binaries, set some system parameters
31. DB Only: Setup keyless SSH for Oracle between DB servers
32. Install HP Support Pack RPMs
33. Set VCA config and passwords (HP Version Control Agent) to gi-sma01
34. Configure SNMP and set traps to gi-sma01 (HP SIM)
35. Configure iLO:
    1. Set/update iLO Name (also appears as Blade name in Onboard Administrator GUI)
    2. Set/update iLO Hostname (gi-<server>i)
    3. Create/set usernames/passwords: gibtechops, uktechops, lvtechops
    4. Set SNMP traps to point to gi-sma01 (HP SIM)
    5. * Note: These run at first boot and you may lose access to iLO while it resets.
36. Write all logs and output to /root/kickstart_logs
37. Send email notification of server build