Fedora 8: Multiple Network Fedora Installations

I wanted to have an automatic installation of multiple workstations, and automatic updating of them, from local source, via yum. First goal was achieved via Kickstart utility that is included in Fedora. If not installed, you could install it with yum install system-config-kickstart. The second goal is accomplished with utility called reposync that is part of an yum-utils (yum install yum-utils).

Automatic installation options with Kickstart utility

When installed, Kickstart is found in Applications -> System Tools -> Kickstart. With this utility, you create the options file for unattended installation. Basically, I followed the instructions from this link, but I decided to use a standard CD as a source (not NFS), and just to use a Kickstart as the fastest way to select the applications.

Local repository

You should install all the repositories that you will need.

Create a directory (mine is /home/shared/yum.local.repo). Then, execute yum install yum-utils to surely have a reposync utility.

Then copy the DVD content to the local repository.

mkdir /mnt/cdrom

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

cd /mnt/cdrom/Packages

cp -r . /home/shared/yum.local.repo/fedora/Packages/

cd /
eject cdrom

To synchronize every repository, execute reposync -n --download_path=/home/shared/yum.local.repo. For specific repositories, execute:

reposync -n –download_path=/home/shared/yum.local.repo
–repoid=livna –repoid=remi
–repoid=utterramblings
–repoid=tigro
–repoid=freshrpms
–repoid=updates –repoid=fedora

Then, share that with the world…

chkconfig –list nfs

service nfs status

chkconfig –level 235 nfs on

service nfs start

nano /etc/exports

/home/shared/yum.local.repo 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(ro)exportfs -r

Sources of information are:

http://www.howtoforge.com/setting-up-a-local-yum-repository-fedora8,

http://www.howtoforge.com/creating_a_local_yum_repository_centos

http://www.howtoforge.com/nfs-server-and-client-debian-etch

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