5. Import CentOS distribution and create a default profile
Systems managed by cobbler use profiles to be configured for installation. Profiles allow you to configure groups of systems in a common way. E.g. you can have a profile for compute nodes, a profile for login nodes, etc. Cobbler even allows profiles to be related to each other. A profile can inherit settings from a parent profile.
A typical usage is to have a generic CentOS7 profile and then customized ones for each hardware configuration or use case.
Profiles use a distribution as installation source. To create a system managed by cobbler, we therefore first have to create both a distribution and profile that uses it.
We do this by importing the CentOS Distribution from our ISO file. This will create a distribution and profile within cobbler.
Mount ISO
Mount the ISO as loopback device into a folder, e.g.
/mnt/iso.# mount ISO image [root@master ~]# mkdir -p /mnt/iso [root@master ~]# mount CentOS-7-x86_64-Everything-2207-02.iso /mnt/iso
Import CentOS distribution into cobbler
Run the following command to import a distribution from
/mnt/isointo cobbler. It will copy all necessary files for booting and all other files needed for installation. (this can take some time). You essentially did the same during exercise 2 manually.[root@master ~]# cobbler import --name=centos7 --arch=x86_64 --path=/mnt/iso task started: 2019-02-18_120725_import task started (id=Media import, time=Mon Feb 18 12:07:25 2019) Found a candidate signature: breed=redhat, version=rhel6 Found a matching signature: breed=redhat, version=rhel6 Adding distros from path /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64: creating new distro: centos7-x86_64 trying symlink: /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64 -> /var/www/cobbler/links/centos7-x86_64 creating new profile: centos7-x86_64 associating repos checking for rsync repo(s) checking for rhn repo(s) checking for yum repo(s) starting descent into /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64 for centos7-x86_64 processing repo at : /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64 need to process repo/comps: /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64 looking for /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64/repodata/*comps*.xml Keeping repodata as-is :/var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64/repodata *** TASK COMPLETE ***
After completion your imported distribution will be listed when you run
cobbler distro list.[root@master ~]# cobbler distro list centos7-x86_64
You can see all available
cobbler distrocommands by just entering[root@master ~]# cobbler distro usage ===== cobbler distro add cobbler distro copy cobbler distro edit cobbler distro find cobbler distro list cobbler distro remove cobbler distro rename cobbler distro report
Inspect your imported distribution with the
cobbler distro reportcommand:[root@master ~]# cobbler distro report --name=centos7-x86_64 Name : centos7-x86_64 Architecture : x86_64 TFTP Boot Files : {} Breed : redhat Comment : Fetchable Files : {} Initrd : /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64/images/pxeboot/initrd.img Kernel : /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz Kernel Options : {} Kernel Options (Post Install) : {} Kickstart Metadata : {'tree': 'http://@@http_server@@/cblr/links/centos7-x86_64'} Management Classes : [] OS Version : rhel6 Owners : ['admin'] Red Hat Management Key : <<inherit>> Red Hat Management Server : <<inherit>> Template Files : {}
Here, cobbler falsely detected a RHEL6 distribution. Let’s correct this via
cobbler distro edit:[root@master ~]# cobbler distro edit --name=centos7-x86_64 --os-version=rhel7 [root@master ~]# cobbler distro report --name=centos7-x86_64 Name : centos7-x86_64 Architecture : x86_64 TFTP Boot Files : {} Breed : redhat Comment : Fetchable Files : {} Initrd : /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64/images/pxeboot/initrd.img Kernel : /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-x86_64/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz Kernel Options : {} Kernel Options (Post Install) : {} Kickstart Metadata : {'tree': 'http://@@http_server@@/cblr/links/centos7-x86_64'} Management Classes : [] OS Version : rhel7 Owners : ['admin'] Red Hat Management Key : <<inherit>> Red Hat Management Server : <<inherit>> Template Files : {}
During the import, cobbler also created a
centos7-x86_64profile for you, which uses thecentos7-x86_64distribution.[root@master ~]# cobbler profile list centos7-x86_64
Similar to
cobbler distro, all available sub-commands ofcobbler profilecan be seen by simply executing it:[root@master ~]# cobbler profile usage ===== cobbler profile add cobbler profile copy cobbler profile dumpvars cobbler profile edit cobbler profile find cobbler profile getks cobbler profile list cobbler profile remove cobbler profile rename cobbler profile report
Looking at a particular profile in detail is done using the
cobbler profile reportcommand:[root@master ~]# cobbler profile report --name=centos7-x86_64 Name : centos7-x86_64 TFTP Boot Files : {} Comment : DHCP Tag : default Distribution : centos7-x86_64 Enable gPXE? : 0 Enable PXE Menu? : 1 Fetchable Files : {} Kernel Options : {} Kernel Options (Post Install) : {} Kickstart : /var/lib/cobbler/kickstarts/sample_end.ks Kickstart Metadata : {} Management Classes : [] Management Parameters : <<inherit>> Name Servers : [] Name Servers Search Path : [] Owners : ['admin'] Parent Profile : Internal proxy : Red Hat Management Key : <<inherit>> Red Hat Management Server : <<inherit>> Repos : [] Server Override : <<inherit>> Template Files : {} Virt Auto Boot : 1 Virt Bridge : xenbr0 Virt CPUs : 1 Virt Disk Driver Type : raw Virt File Size(GB) : 5 Virt Path : Virt RAM (MB) : 512 Virt Type : kvm
Unmount ISO
Finally unmount the ISO image.
umount /mnt/iso