[plug] Hacking the Redhat install

[Luke Dudney]

Buddrige, David wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I am currently working on software for a client that is designed to run on
>Redhat Linux 7.2.  We have written a procedure on how to install the system
>onto a computer, beginning with formatting the hard-drive and going through
>the redhat 7.2 installation, through to installing the software we've
>developed.
>
>What we'd really like to do is to be able to write a single script that they
>could run that would install Redhat with all of our chosen configurations
>and then install our own software.
>
>I have been hunting around on the net trying to find out information as to
>how to go about hacking the redhat install process.  With slackware the
>install procedure was kicked off by a script called "install" which then
>went thorough allowing the user to interactively choose various components
>to install.  Being a script however it was straight-forward enough to hack
>such that rather than providing interactive prompts it just went ahead and
>installed particular packages according to our needs.
>
>However I have not yet been able to figure out how to do this under Redhat.
>When you boot off the boot disk (or CDROM), you are presented with a screen
>that allows you to press <ENTER> to proceed with the install.  I have found
>where the text file that displays this screen is located, but not the
>program that a ctually undertakes the installl.  There does not appear to be
>a script as such to do this.  My guess is that perhaps it is a C program or
>somesuch.  Does anyone know about this aspect of Redhat?
>
>thanks heaps
>
>David Buddrige.
>
>  
>
Try a kickstart installation - 
 http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.2-Manual/custom-guide/ch-kickstart2.html
There is a GUI kickstart configuration builder included with RedHat 
called "Kickstart configurator" which you can use to build the script 
(which is just a flat text file).

Cheers
Luke