Bug 55673 - kickstart: documentation makes a note about undocumented --cleapart parameter
Summary: kickstart: documentation makes a note about undocumented --cleapart parameter
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED RAWHIDE
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: rhl-cg
Version: 7.2
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Tammy Fox
QA Contact: Brock Organ
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2001-11-04 15:19 UTC by Zenon Mousmoulas
Modified: 2007-04-18 16:38 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2001-11-06 19:29:23 UTC
Embargoed:


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Description Zenon Mousmoulas 2001-11-04 15:19:20 UTC
Description of problem:
In the RHL 7.2 Official Customization Guide (page 38 of the PDF version) 
there is the following note:

Note
If --clearpart is used in the ks.cfg file, then --onpart cannot
be used on a logical partition.

The "--clearpart" parameter is not documented as a parameter of 
the "part" (partition) directive or anywhere else. One can understand 
from reading the documentation that this note actually means that if the 
partition table for a disk is cleared with the "clearpart" directive, 
then the "--onpart" parameter of the "part" directive should not be used 
with an argument of a partition of the disk that was cleared before.
However this note should be corrected to make it clear and avoid 
confusion, unless there is actually such a parameter (--clearpart) which 
is simply not documented :) In such a case, it must be added to the 
documentation.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Not applicable.

Actual Results:  Not applicable.

Expected Results:  Not applicable.

Additional info:

Kickstart documentation (part of RHL Official Customization Guide) is not 
clear at several points. Most specifically, the two most noticeable 
issues are:
A. It is not always clear what the right syntax for directive parameters 
that accept arguments is, i.e. if 
directive --parameter argument
is right or if
directive --parameter=argument
is right. From experience, it usually does not make a difference, but 
using the "=" syntax is cleaner. But I have no clue the scripting 
language that anaconda uses (python) does process these syntax formats 
different.
B. The documentation should include syntactical examples for every 
directive and parameter explained. It should also be explicitly noted 
when a directive requires at a minimum some parameters, which parameters 
are required to be used together and which parameters conflict with each 
other and should not be used together. There are some notes about such 
issues (e.g. see the part/partition directive documentation) but there 
are many more missing (also see Bug #55670). Similarly, directive 
dependencies and conflictions should be better documented (also see Bug 
#55672).

Comment 1 Zenon Mousmoulas 2001-11-06 14:55:29 UTC
I am sorry, I didn't notice there was a separate component for the guide or 
else I wouldn't have added this as an anaconda issue :)


Comment 2 Tammy Fox 2001-11-06 19:29:16 UTC
It should say  "If the clearpart command is used in the ks.cfg file, then
--onpart cannot be used on a logical partition" without the --. clearpart is a
separate
command. I have fixed this for the next version of the documentation.

I will also work on adding more examples to the kickstart documentation.



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