mhannant/kickstart-fedora-workstation

kickstart file for my personal workstations

Fedora Workstation Kickstart File

Overview

Part of an overall project to adopt the "cattle" approach to my personal computing.

Assuming the distribution does its job correctly, I can use this project along with good backups in my homedir to have a consistent environment on any installed target.

Designed to:

• Deploy Fedora (tested on F24) with a repeatable and automated method.
• Provide a single source of truth for the software I like to use.
• Encapsulate any optimisations/tricks I like to apply.

Requirements

• This README assumes installation to a device with:
  • An internet connected ethernet port.
  • At least 15GB of HDD.
  • A webserver to host this kickstart file once it is configured.
• For machines with no eth port, use livecd-iso-to-disk then add the ks file to the USB.
  • https://github.com/rhinstaller/livecd-tools/blob/master/tools/livecd-iso-to-disk.sh

Use

• Clone and enter this repository with:
  • git clone https://github.com/sinner-/kickstart-fedora-workstation.
  • cd kickstart-fedora-workstation.
• Configure the LUKS full disk encryption passphrase:
  • sed -i 's/fdepassphrase/YOUR_FULL_DISK_ENCRYPTION_PASSPHRASE/' workstation.ks.
• Configure the builtin users password:
  • sed -i 's/userpassword/YOUR_USER_PASSWORD/' workstation.ks.
• If you're not me you will probably also want to run:
  • sed -i 's/sina-laptop/YOUR_DESIRED_HOSTNAME/' workstation.ks.
    • (run this command before the next one to avoid sed mixups)
  • sed -i 's/sina/YOUR_NAME/' workstation.ks.
  • sed -i 's/^timezone/timezone Yourcountry\/Yourcity/' workstation.ks.
• Upload the kickstart file to your webserver. I normally use another local linux machine:
  • python -m SimpleHTTPServer (starts on port 8000).
• SECURITY REMINDER:
  • FDE PASSWORD AND USER PASSWORD WILL BE PRESENT IN THE FILE IN PLAINTEXT
  • KICKSTART FILE WILL BE ACCESSIBLE FROM THE WEBSERVER
  • DO NOT USE THIS PROJECT UNLESS YOU ARE CAPABLE OF SECURING THIS SENSITIVE INFO
• Install Fedora Workstation netinst to a usb with dd if=netinst.iso of=/dev/sdx bs=1M oflag=sync.
• Boot Fedora Workstation netinst on the target install machine.
• At the boot screen, press UP to select the "install without verify" option and then TAB.
• Append the kickstart directive to the end of the boot string:
  • inst.ks=http://<WEB_SERVER_IP>:<PORT>/workstation.ks
• Hit ENTER. Install will begin and complete without any further prompt.