Automated creation of a cobbler master Virtual Machine, installed from sources and a sample kickstart profile. The setup can automatically provision other machines via PXE network boot.
Can be used as a playground for prototyping and testing cobbler and kickstart deployments.
Automated installation from sources was inspired by mismatch in libraries version in epel repositories for CentOS7, between cobbler-web and django, resulting in a broken cobbler-web installation. Also, having the source deployment process in place makes some prototyping experiments easier.
Assuming that VirtualBox and Vagrant are installed, and we are in the cloned directory of this repository
# Create the cobbler master VM
vagrant up
# (optional) Connect to the VM
vagrant ssh
# Stop the VM
vagrant halt
# Destroy the VM (assuming no changes inside, it is easy enough to recreate)
vagrant destroyIn my case time vagrant up ends with the following message:
master: running python trigger cobbler.modules.manage_genders
master: running python trigger cobbler.modules.scm_track
master: running shell triggers from /var/lib/cobbler/triggers/change/*
master: *** TASK COMPLETE ***
master: + cat
master: * The target machine will need at least 1.5 GB RAM.
master: * Make sure it is connected to the same network.
master: * Installation will not start automatically
master: * Will require one down arrow keypress
master: * To change edit /etc/cobbler/pxe/pxedefault.template
master: * Move local below $pxe_menu_items ande remove MENU DEFAULT line
master: * Installation can be observed via SSH, check sshpw comment in CentOS7.ks file
master: * After installation is finished and target machine reboots
master: * It is ready for provisioning via SSH for example with ansible
master: * yum install -y ansible
master: * ansible all -i 192.168.10.115, -m ping --become-user=cobbler -k
real 7m41,830s
user 1m21,678s
sys 0m15,322s
Web interface should be available at https://192.168.10.5/cobbler_web (l: cobbler, p: cobbler).
We will use VirtualBox GUI here to keep it simple
- Open VirtualBox GUI
- New -> Name: "PXE Test", Type: "Linux", Version: "RedHat (64-bit)" -> Next
- Memory: 2048 -> Next
- Create a virtual hard disk now -> Create -> VDI -> Next
- "Dynamically allocated" -> Next -> Create
- Settings -> System -> Boot Order -> Select "Network" and move to the top
- Settings -> Network -> Adapter 1 -> Attached to: "Host-only Adapter", Name: "vboxnet1"
- The code was created and tested on Linux Mint
- VirtualBox 5.2.18
- Vagrant 2.2.3
- References