Bug 1374092

Summary:	Does not reconfigure network as specified in kickstart if it was activated in dracut, as docs claim it does
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Adam Williamson <awilliam>
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	Anaconda Maintenance Team <anaconda-maint-list>
Status:	CLOSED EOL	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	25	CC:	anaconda-maint-list, g.kaviyarasu, jonathan, mkolman, vanmeeuwen+fedora
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Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
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Last Closed:	2017-12-12 10:16:55 UTC	Type:	Bug
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Description Adam Williamson 2016-09-07 23:47:09 UTC

The kickstart docs:

https://github.com/rhinstaller/pykickstart/blob/master/docs/kickstart-docs.rst#network

claim this:

"--activate

Activate this device in the installation environment.

If the device has already been activated (for example, an interface you configured with boot options so that the system could retrieve the Kickstart file) the device is reactivated to use the configuration specified in the Kickstart file."

However, it seems to be a lie. If I run an install using a kickstart that specifies a static network configuration, and uses --activate:

network --device=link --activate --bootproto=static --ip=192.168.1.105 --netmask=255.255.255.0 --gateway=192.168.1.1 --hostname=client001.happyassassin.net --nameserver=192.168.1.1

but retrieve the kickstart over the network - so dracut has to activate the adapter in order to retrieve it - anaconda does *not* reconfigure the interface as the docs claim it will. It just sticks with the configuration dracut got via DHCP. If I check the interface config while the install is in progress, I see it has a DHCP-assigned IP address, not 192.168.1.105.

This is a real problem when I'm testing FreeIPA client enrolment via kickstart; any old network configuration will suffice to retrieve the kickstart, but in order to actually enrol into the domain, we have to use a specific DNS server and hostname. So because anaconda doesn't reconfigure the network, I have to pass the same static configuration to dracut using its horrible, horrible configuration syntax, which I inevitably get wrong about ten times until I read wwoods' instructions again carefully.

I most recently re-checked this with Fedora-Server-dvd-x86_64-25-20160907.n.0.iso , but it's actually been broken for years, since I started testing FreeIPA enrolment at least. I used to think it was just an unfortunate limitation of anaconda, but the other day I noticed the docs actually claim that re-initialization should happen, which makes it a bug. ;)

Comment 1 Adam Williamson 2016-09-07 23:48:46 UTC

Looking in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts (of the installer environment, not the installed system root) while the install is in progress, there is an ifcfg-ens3 file with the right settings in there. But I guess it's never properly loaded/applied? The NetworkManager journal output shows it basically accepting the existing DHCP configuration.

Comment 2 Fedora End Of Life 2017-11-16 19:40:25 UTC

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Comment 3 Fedora End Of Life 2017-12-12 10:16:55 UTC

Fedora 25 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2017-12-12. Fedora 25 is
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