10. Create Profile

Profiles allow you to customize groups of compute nodes with the same settings and create a custom kickstart file for them. Each imported Linux distribution automatically adds a base profile which can be used as a starting point. A profile can depend and inherit properties from a parent profile.

A typical example would be to have one profile for each hardware configuration on a cluster, each based on the AlmaLinux 8 profile.

You can add a child profile by using cobbler profile add and specifying a parent profile.

[root@master ~]# cobbler profile add --name=almalinux8-compute --parent=almalinux8-x86_64

The output of cobbler profile report shows that all values not explicitly set on a child profile are inherited from its parent profile.

[root@master ~]# cobbler profile report --name=almalinux8-compute
Name                           : almalinux8-compute
Automatic Installation Template : <<inherit>>
Automatic Installation Metadata : {}
TFTP Boot Files                : {}
Comment                        :
DHCP Tag                       : <<inherit>>
Distribution                   : <<inherit>>
Enable gPXE?                   : 0
Enable PXE Menu?               : <<inherit>>
Fetchable Files                : {}
DHCP Filename Override         : <<inherit>>
Kernel Options                 : {}
Kernel Options (Post Install)  : {}
Management Classes             : <<inherit>>
Management Parameters          : <<inherit>>
Name Servers                   : []
Name Servers Search Path       : []
Next Server Override           : <<inherit>>
Owners                         : ['admin']
Parent Profile                 : almalinux8-x86_64
Proxy                          : <<inherit>>
Red Hat Management Key         : <<inherit>>
Repos                          : <<inherit>>
Server Override                : <<inherit>>
Template Files                 : {}
Virt Auto Boot                 : <<inherit>>
Virt Bridge                    : <<inherit>>
Virt CPUs                      : <<inherit>>
Virt Disk Driver Type          : <<inherit>>
Virt File Size(GB)             : <<inherit>>
Virt Path                      : <<inherit>>
Virt RAM (MB)                  : <<inherit>>
Virt Type                      : <<inherit>>

We can specify value we want to change either directly in the add command, or later using edit. E.g., if you want to use your own kickstart template for a profile you can set the path to that file. Make sure the compute.ks exists in the /var/lib/cobbler/templates/ folder.

[root@master ~]# cobbler profile edit --name=almalinux8-compute --autoinstall=compute.ks