2. Install cobbler and prerequisites

We’ll be focusing on installing on a RPM based system such as Fedora, CentOS or AlmaLinux.

1. Enable EPEL repositories

   [root@master ~]# yum update
   [root@master ~]# yum install epel-release
   

2. Install cobbler via yum

   [root@master ~]# yum install cobbler
   

3. Enable and start services needed for cobbler

   enable Apache and cobbler service

   [root@master ~]# systemctl enable httpd
   [root@master ~]# systemctl enable cobblerd
   [root@master ~]# systemctl start httpd
   [root@master ~]# systemctl start cobblerd
   

4. Run cobbler check to verify installation

   [root@master ~]# cobbler check
   The following are potential configuration items that you may want to fix:
   
   1: The 'server' field in /etc/cobbler/settings must be set to something other than localhost, or automatic installation features will not work.  This should be a resolvable hostname or IP for the boot server as reachable by all machines that will use it.
   2: For PXE to be functional, the 'next_server' field in /etc/cobbler/settings must be set to something other than 127.0.0.1, and should match the IP of the boot server on the PXE network.
   3: some network boot-loaders are missing from /var/lib/cobbler/loaders. If you only want to handle x86/x86_64 netbooting, you may ensure that you have installed a *recent* version of the syslinux package installed and can ignore this message entirely. Files in this directory, should you want to support all architectures, should include pxelinux.0, menu.c32, and yaboot.
   4: reposync is not installed, install yum-utils or dnf-plugins-core
   5: yumdownloader is not installed, install yum-utils or dnf-plugins-core
   6: debmirror package is not installed, it will be required to manage debian deployments and repositories
   7: ksvalidator was not found, install pykickstart
   8: The default password used by the sample templates for newly installed machines (default_password_crypted in /etc/cobbler/settings) is still set to 'cobbler' and should be changed, try: "openssl passwd -1 -salt 'random-phrase-here' 'your-password-here'" to generate new one
   9: fencing tools were not found, and are required to use the (optional) power management features. install cman or fence-agents to use them
   
   Restart cobblerd and then run 'cobbler sync' to apply changes.
   

   The output of this check is self-explanatory. Several default settings should be adjusted and some missing pieces need to be installed. Some things, like Debian support are optional.

5. Set the server and next_server to your master server IP

   The main configuration file for cobbler is /etc/cobbler/settings.yaml and is in YAML format.

   Your cobbler server is responsible for the installation process. This will happen over the cluster network subnet we configured 192.168.16.0/20. Configure cobbler to use the master.hpc IP address.

   server: 192.168.16.1
   ...
   next_server: 192.168.16.1
   

6. Download boot loaders (optional)

7. Install yum-utils rsyncd

   [root@master ~]# yum install yum-utils
   

8. Install pykickstart to validate Kickstart files

   [root@master ~]# yum install pykickstart
   

9. Restart cobblerd daemon

   [root@master ~]# cobbler sync
   task started: 2025-05-27_043253_sync
   task started (id=Sync, time=Tue May 27 04:32:53 2025)
   running python triggers from /var/lib/cobbler/triggers/task/sync/pre/*
   running shell triggers from /var/lib/cobbler/triggers/task/sync/pre/*
   shell triggers finished successfully
   running pre-sync triggers
   cleaning trees
   removing: /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
   removing: /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/grub.cfg
   removing: /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/images
   removing: /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/local_legacy.cfg
   removing: /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/system
   removing: /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/local_efi.cfg
   removing: /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/local_powerpc-ieee1275.cfg
   removing: /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/system_link
   copying bootloaders
   running: ['rsync', '-rpt', '--copy-links', '--exclude=.cobbler_postun_cleanup', '/var/lib/cobbler/loaders/', '/var/lib/tftpboot']
   received on stdout:
   received on stderr:
   running: ['rsync', '-rpt', '--copy-links', '--exclude=README.grubconfig', '/var/lib/cobbler/grub_config/', '/var/lib/tftpboot']
   received on stdout:
   received on stderr:
   copying distros to tftpboot
   copying images
   generating PXE configuration files
   generating PXE menu structure
   cleaning link caches
   running post-sync triggers
   running python triggers from /var/lib/cobbler/triggers/sync/post/*
   running python trigger cobbler.modules.sync_post_restart_services
   running shell triggers from /var/lib/cobbler/triggers/sync/post/*
   shell triggers finished successfully
   running python triggers from /var/lib/cobbler/triggers/change/*
   running python trigger cobbler.modules.scm_track
   running python trigger cobbler.modules.managers.genders
   running shell triggers from /var/lib/cobbler/triggers/change/*
   shell triggers finished successfully
   *** TASK COMPLETE ***
   

   [root@master tftpboot]# yum install tree
   [root@master tftpboot]# tree /var/lib/tftpboot/
   /var/lib/tftpboot/
   ├── boot
   ├── etc
   ├── grub
   │   ├── grub.cfg
   │   ├── images -> ../images
   │   ├── local_efi.cfg
   │   ├── local_legacy.cfg
   │   ├── local_powerpc-ieee1275.cfg
   │   ├── system
   │   └── system_link
   ├── grub.cfg
   ├── images
   ├── images2
   ├── ldlinux.c32
   ├── libutil.c32
   ├── lpxelinux.0
   ├── memdisk
   ├── menu.c32
   ├── ppc
   ├── pxelinux.0
   ├── pxelinux.cfg
   │   └── default
   └── s390x
   
   10 directories, 8 files
   

   By default cobbler only manages TFTP and generates the necessary files in /var/lib/tftpboot/. The rest of the exercise will be about how to configure cobbler to manage DHCP and DNS for us.