Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 25954
No way to install via NFS using multiple CD-ROM's
Last modified: 2005-10-31 17:00:50 EST
When I run into a CDROM disc changed problem, reported before, during my BETA3 installation on my test system I was hoping that I will be able to use NFS to mount distribution CD1 on /mnt/cdrom1 and CD2 on /mnt/cdrom2, NFS export filesystems /mnt/cdrom1 and /mnt/cdrom2 on my production system and continue with installation. But Nooooooo... You can't do that there is no option to handle distribution on multiple CD's mounted somewhere else, and avoiding swapping the CD's. I was also hoping that when I got missing file message I will be able to go to my production system and unexport NFS exported directories, unmount /mnt/cdrom that contained distribution CD1 and mount /mnt/cdrom containing distribution CD2. But Nooooooo... You can't do that either, Installer generates message but does not releases NFS file system for me to be able to remount CD and continue. What I suggest are three options which could be incorporated into installer: 1) to be able to specify multiple CD's that are needed during installation to be NFS mounted at the same time on separate mounting points. 2) allow option to switch NFS mounted CD (if only one mounting point is used) by releasing NFS mounting point and remounting it on the next try. 3) Option to go back and be able to fix the problem and restart install at the point of failure when something goes wrong (At the moment the only option when missing file message is displayed is to restart installation form scratch) It would be a great improvement for the remote administration of the servers when distributions CD's are NFS mounted on Jukebox and installer can be setup for hands off installation.
installer is anaconda and this is mostly a duplicate of a bug I filed back when the dual cd install appeared in the 7.0 -- bug 12804, rfe to allow multiple dirs for installing from. Letting msf decide whether it's enough of a duplicate to mark as such since it contains a couple of extra options. 2 and 3 aren't really solutions as much as hacks though imho.
If I understand this bug report correctly, it can be addressed by copying both CDs into a single hierarchy. The shortcoming is it does require about 1.2 gig of disk space on the NFS server, and we are aware of this issue. As mentioned above, this is an RFE for future consideration. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 12804 ***