How to create a customize dvd of fedora 8 as a bootable kickstart

**ashishkhatri** · 09-25-2008, 10:49 PM

hello guys

hi guys
I want to end up with a bootable DVD that will automagically start the kickstart script and perform an unattended install. I have read a few things that say that ks.cfg must be in the root of the image. I've read other things that say that isolinux/ is really the root, and so the ks.cfg must be there. Neither work. In my isolinux.cfg, I have:

label ks
kernel vmlinuz
append ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=8192

ks.cfg is in isolinux/ as well as the top-level directory. What am I missing? How do I get the booted OS to read and use ks.cfg?

also i had added "default ks" in isolinux.cfg file
i had used the following command to make the isoimage of ks.cfg i had placed my dump of fedora8 in /bkup/dump3
"mkisofs -o ../cdrom.iso -A 'ISOLINUX' -V 'ISOLINUX' -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table ."

also the .treeinfo and .diskinfo both hidden files are present.
then i created the isoimage of my dump with the command
"mkisofs -o /fedora.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table /bkup/dump3."
then i burned the iso image "fedora.iso" to a dvd with the help of k3b
the dvd is bootable but at boot time when prompt comes i gave the command "linux ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg"

but its giving me the error
RAMDISK: compressed image found at block 0
crc error
VFS:cannot open root device "<null>" or unknown-block (253,0)
please appened a coorect "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
kernel panic - not syncing:VFS:unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(253,0).

also my directory tree is as follows
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 2008-09-24 19:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 2008-09-24 19:02 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9627648 2008-09-24 19:24 cdrom.iso
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 109 2007-11-02 20:29 .discinfo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2882 2007-11-02 20:26 fedora.css
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18363 2007-11-02 20:26 GPL
drwxrwxr-x 4 root root 4096 2007-11-02 20:26 images
drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-09-24 19:23 isolinux
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 94 2007-11-02 20:29 media.repo
drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 122880 2007-11-02 19:51 Packages
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9680 2007-11-02 20:26 README-BURNING-ISOS-en_US.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 172530 2007-11-02 20:26 RELEASE-NOTES-en_US.html
drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-11-02 20:29 repodata
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 73728 2007-11-02 19:55 repoview
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1910 2007-11-02 20:26 RPM-GPG-KEY
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1706 2007-11-02 20:26 RPM-GPG-KEY-beta
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1519 2007-11-02 20:26 RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1105 2007-11-02 20:26 RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-rawhide
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1076 2007-11-02 20:26 RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-test
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1232 2007-11-02 20:26 RPM-GPG-KEY-rawhide
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-11-02 20:26 stylesheet-images
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4290 2007-11-02 20:29 TRANS.TBL
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 430 2007-11-02 20:26 .treeinfo

CD ISOLINUX
drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-09-24 19:23 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 2008-09-24 19:24 ..
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 2048 2007-11-02 20:29 boot.cat
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 292 2007-11-02 20:24 boot.msg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 919 2007-11-02 20:24 general.msg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 6587351 2007-11-02 20:24 initrd.img
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 10932 2008-09-24 19:25 isolinux.bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1057 2008-09-24 19:23 isolinux.cfg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1389 2008-09-24 19:14 ks.cfg
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 103260 2007-11-02 20:24 memtest
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 817 2007-11-02 20:24 options.msg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 517 2007-11-02 20:24 param.msg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 490 2007-11-02 20:24 rescue.msg
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 446917 2007-11-02 20:24 splash.jpg
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 117568 2007-11-02 20:24 vesamenu.c32
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1978624 2007-11-02 20:24 vmlinuz

VI ISOLINUX.CFG
default ks
prompt 1
timeout 600

display boot.msg
F1 boot.msg
F2 options.msg
F3 general.msg
F4 param.msg
F5 rescue.msg

menu background splash.jpg
menu title Welcome to Fedora 8!
menu color border 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color sel 7 #ffffffff #ff000000
menu color title 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color tabmsg 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color unsel 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color hotsel 0 #ff000000 #ffffffff
menu color hotkey 7 #ffffffff #ff000000

label linux
menu label ^Install or upgrade an existing system
menu default
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img
label text
menu label Install or upgrade an existing system (^text mode)
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img text
label rescue
menu label ^Rescue installed system
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img rescue
label local
menu label Boot from ^local drive
localboot 0xffff
label memtest86
menu label ^Memory test
kernel memtest
append -
label ks
menu label ^Install from kickstart
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img ks=cdrom:/isolinux/ks.cfg

PLZZZZZZ GUYS HELP ME correcting this error.

Ashish khatri

**Schotty** · 10-16-2008, 01:33 AM

What about doing a respin with revisor?

Link to howto

nevermind, I actually read your post and saw the unattended part. The RH tool that I used in the past to create the ks file took care of that for me. But I may have done it differently -- I was using a floppy and doing a network install.