Bug 150844

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User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4.3) Gecko/20050104 Red Hat/1.4.3-3.0.7

Description of problem:
We usually kickstart our machines the following way:
1) boot from the distro's installation CD
2) at the first prompt enter
   'linux ks=http://our.satellite.server/path/to/kickstart'
3) in the server networks we don't have DHCP, so wait for the
   DHCP request to timeout and the screen to appear asking for
   for the IP settings and specify those settings
4) burn your tongue if you go for a coffee because the install is
   blindingly fast and you have to slurp your coffee really hot ;-)

Works perfectly well and we're happy with this procedure. However,
with the ISO images for RHEL4 this does not work. Tried the images
for RHEL4-WS/DT/AS, also verified the md5sum.

With the RHEL4 installation CD, the prompt (step3) appears but the
settings are not applied to the network interface. Long timeouts and
nothing happens. After a loooong time, finally, the system asks whether
to check the CD and continue with a CD installation. Saying yes and going
slightly further, a shell becomes available at tty2 and doing an ifconfig
from there shows that the network interface does not have any IP address
assigned.

Sofar the only way around the issue I have found is to create a custom
CD for the machines and include all IP parameters in the append line of
the custom label (or enter everything painstakingly at the boot prompt):
label vm251
  kernel vmlinuz
  append text \
         ks=http://ip-of-satellite-server/kickstart/ks/label/mylabel  \
         initrd=initrd.img \
         lang= \
         devfs=nomount \
         ramdisk_size=8192 \
         ksdevice=eth0 \
         ip=192.168.111.111 \
         netmask=255.255.255.0 \
         gateway=192.168.111.11 \
         nameserver=172.17.172.17 \
         device=eth0


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS release 4 (Nahant)

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. boot from RHEL4 installation cd in a network without DHCP
2. at boot prompt enter 'linux ks=http://satelliteserver/path/to/kickstart'
3. wait for DHCP request to timeout and the IP settings mask to appear
4. enter the IP settings
  

Actual Results:  system fails to apply the entered IP address to the network card and thus can
not install

Expected Results:  system should apply the entered IP addresses to the network card and install

Additional info: