While installing Fedora 16 Alpha, I found that partitions are being created out of order. I used the following kickstart partitioning options: zerombr clearpart --linux --drives=vda --initlabel part biosboot --fstype=biosboot --size=1 part /boot --fstype ext3 --ondisk=vda --asprimary part / --size=20000 --fstype ext4 --ondisk=vda --asprimary part swap --size=2048 --fstype swap --ondisk=vda --asprimary part /local --size=100 --grow --fstype ext4 --ondisk=vda --asprimary --label=local After partitioning, parted reports the following layout: [anaconda root@localhost ~]# parted -s /dev/vda print all Model: Virtio Block Device (virtblk) Disk /dev/vda: 26.8GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 2097kB 1049kB bios_grub 2 2097kB 21.0GB 21.0GB ext4 3 21.0GB 23.1GB 2147MB linux-swap(v1) 4 23.1GB 23.6GB 524MB ext3 ext3 boot 5 23.6GB 26.8GB 3197MB ext4 [anaconda root@localhost ~]# Notice that the boot partition is located after the swap partition instead of before the root partition. This causes problems because I have a different kickstart script that uses existing partitions instead of repartitioning, but "part /boot --fstype ext3 --onpart=sda2" no longer works.
There has never been any guarantee that partitions would be created in any particular order in anaconda or kickstart. If you want to be able to automate install/reinstall cycles you should consider using labels (user-specified) or uuids (automatically generated as part of filesystem) along with a %pre script to generate your partitioning commands.
I would love to use labels, but I cannot find any documentation about how to do this. As far as I understand from the Anaconda/Kickstart wiki page, the part --onpart requires a device name (from /dev) and does not support labels. What's the right way to specify a label?
I've finally had a chance to look into this more, and I eventually found a "part --onpart=LABEL=somelabel" option that seems to work. This was not in the Anaconda/Kickstart wiki page, so I just added it. I will leave the ticket open because I have not tested the "part --onpart=UUID=someuuid" option, so I'd like someone who knows more about this to double-check my changes to the documentation.
I've added a new section at the top that also includes some text out of the RHEL6 migration guide I think will be useful. How does https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Kickstart#Special_Notes_for_Referring_to_Disks look?
Overall, I think it's fantastic. My only thought is that the examples are prefixed with "/dev/disks", which seems to contradict the later warning: "Do not prefix the partition name with /dev." If the examples in the new section are correct, then it would be less confusing if the warning were fixed.
Those warnings are no longer correct - you can use /dev/ if you want to. It all gets resolved to the same devices internally. I've removed those sentences. Thanks for catching it.