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+#Kickstart Support

+

+Photon supports kickstart for unattended installations, the kickstart config file can reside in either the CD attached to the host or served through an http server.

+

+##Kickstart capabilities

+

+Photon supports the following configurations:

+* Setting hostname

+* Setting password

+* Setting disk to install

+* Choose Photon flavor to install (minimal or full)

+* Apply post installation script

+* Add public keys, this will allow root ssh login.

+

+Here is a sample configuration file:

+

+```

+{

+    "hostname": "<hostname>",

+    "password": 

+        {

+            "crypted": <true|false>,

+            "text": "<password whether it's plain text or encrypted>"

+        },

+    "disk": "/dev/sda",

+    "type": "minimal",

+    "postinstall": [

+                    "#!/bin/sh",

+                    "echo \"Hello World\" > /etc/postinstall"

+                   ],

+    "public_key": "<public_key>"

+}

+```

+

+##Unattended installation though kickstart

+To have unattended installation, you have to pass `ks=<config_file>` parameter to the kernel command. The config file should be either:

+* on the iso `ks=cdrom:\<config_file_path>`,

+* or served over http server `ks=http://<server>/<config_file_path>`

+

+##Building an iso with your kickstart config file

+Given a recent build photon.iso

+```

+# mount the photon.iso

+mkdir /tmp/photon-iso

+sudo mount photon.iso /tmp/photon-iso

+

+#copy the content of the iso to a writable folder

+mkdir /tmp/photon-ks-iso

+cp -r /tmp/photon-iso/* /tmp/photon-ks-iso/

+

+pushd /tmp/photon-ks-iso/

+

+# write your ks config file

+cp isolinux/sample_ks.cfg isolinux/my_ks.cfg

+vim isolinux/my_ks.cfg

+

+# add new item in the installation menu by modyfing isolinux/menu.cfg

+cat >> isolinux/menu.cfg << EOF

+label my_unattended

+	menu label ^My Unattended Install

+	kernel vmlinuz

+	append initrd=initrd.img root=/dev/ram0 ks=cdrom:/isolinux/my_ks.cfg loglevel=3

+EOF

+

+# rebuild the iso

+mkisofs -R -l -L -D -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \

+		-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -V "PHOTON_$(date +%Y%m%d)" \

+		. > <new_iso_path>.iso

+

+popd

+```