A kickstart file for remotely installing CentOS 7 + Perfsonar on an existing CentOS 6 Perfsonar installation.
Perfsonar (www.perfsonar.net) ended support for CentOS 6 after the 4.0.2 release and CentOS 6 itself went end-of-support on Nov 30, 2020. Upgrading from CentOS 6 to CentOS 7 is not officially supported and it's generally recommended to do a re-install instead. Re-installing remotely without direct console access can be accomplished using a Kickstart based install. The Kickstart contained in this repository is based off the mechansim described in this blog post -- https://fredrikaverpil.github.io/2015/12/30/install-centos-7-remotely-using-kickstart-and-grub/
The kickstart template used for this kickstart comes from the Perfsonar CentOS 7 net-install Kickstart file at https://github.com/perfsonar/toolkit-building/blob/master/kickstarts/centos7-netinstall.cfg
Here are the basic steps involved:
- If you wish to migrate existing config (and optionally existing data), follow instructions located at https://docs.perfsonar.net/install_migrate_centos7.html. Note that the ps_migrate_backup.sh script will likely fail if you do not replace the Postgresql 8.4 pg_dump binary in /usr/bin with the one from Postgresql 9.5. This is what I did as a quick hack to replace it--
cd /usr/bin; mv pg_dump pg_dump.orig; ln -s /usr/pgsql-9.5/bin/pg_dump
-
Modify the ps_upgrade.ks kickstart file from this repository where indicated (in particular, the rootpw and network commands) and copy to /boot directory
-
Download vmlinuz and initrd.img files from http://linux.mirrors.es.net/centos/7/os/x86_64/isolinux and place in /boot directory.
curl -o /boot/vmlinuz http://linux.mirrors.es.net/centos/7/os/x86_64/isolinux/vmlinuz
curl -o /boot/initrd.img http://linux.mirrors.es.net/centos/7/os/x86_64/isolinux/initrd.img
- Update /boot/grub/grub.conf file and add a new boot option (as below) as the first entry to direct the Kickstart installation on next reboot. Enabling sshd during the install is optional with sshd=1 boot option -- make sure to set a ssh password in the kickstart file if enabled (otherwise, ssh logins with no password will be permitted).
title Install CentOS 7 Perfsonar
kernel /vmlinuz ks=hd:/dev/sda1:/ps-upgrade.ks sshd=1
initrd /initrd.img
- Remote VNC access may also be enabled in kickstart file to follow along with the installation process.