I've hit this problem before, it is what I believe to be an anaconda
bug on that particular RHEL version. I tried a *lot* to work around
the problem, spent a lot of time with it, but in the end I just gave
up.

The problem happens because it's simply not possible to bring the
network up at post install stage so the install can communicate with
the host to respond that its installation finished. If anyone can help



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Lucas
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On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Lucas Meneghel Rodrigues

For people reading this thread without a lot of context, just for the



-- 
Lucas
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What commands are you running to configure the network and what command
is stalling? I've done unattended installs with RHEL3.8, 32-bit guests
with networking enabled.

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To add some background to the discussion, RHEL3.9 64 bit works just
fine. The kickstart file that installs pretty much all RH based systems
tries to configure the network by calling 'dhclient eth0'. In order to
work, some networking kernel modules need to be loaded.

While debugging the problem, I discovered that it wasn't possible to
load some of the iptables kernel modules (I don't remember exactly which
ones). So I tried many strategies, loading the modules specifying paths,
etc... nothing worked. It seems like those essential networking modules
in the install kernel for 32 bit are missing due to some build problem.

Sure, once the install finished the system will boot on a functional
kernel, but the kernel used by the install system just can't load the
modules, rendering our unattended install system useless, since the host
need to be able to verify whether the guest finished the install through


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Ok, so it's firewall related. RHEL3 uses a BOOT kernel and only a subset
of the kernel modules are included in the modules.cgz. It should contain
all of the drivers for the NICs, so networking alone should be fine. Why
are the iptables rules needed to tell the host that the install has
completed?

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So, effectively after the install completes use dhclient to configure a
network address, start a server on a known port and when a client
connects send the message "done". I would expect that to work just fine.

What part is not working? Have you used anaconda's root shell (alt-f2)
to confirm each step and if so which one is not setup as expected?

David
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Me too, it has been working for RHEL 4.X, 5.X 32/64 bit and 3.X 64 bit.



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I fired up a 3.9 guest with your ks.cfg. The problem is due to the
limited functionality in the RHEL3 BOOT kernel for i386. Specifically,
dhclient is failing at:

setsockopt(6, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, "\v\0\6\10\240Y\n\10", 8) =
-1 ENOPROTOOPT

So dhclient client is out. But you can still configure and use
networking via ifconfig if static addressing is an option for you. I was
able to use that command to configure eth0 and push an strace output
file for dhclient.

Also, a couple of comments on this use case:
- SELinux is not applicable
- 32 GB of RAM is way beyond what the RHEL3 i386 can detect and use
- 12 vcpus seems high as well.

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Problem resolved :) Yay!

http://autotest.kernel.org/changeset/4432

Thank you very much David,


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