Chapter 7. Using Kickstart

Kickstart is a configuration file format for automating installation procedures. Or at least, it was, originally. Nowadays, kickstart files are used as input to the compose tools, including Revisor.

Revisor again is unique in that it does not require a kickstart file for input. The other tools only take kickstart configuration files. Revisor though allows most of what is in a kickstart file to be configured interactively in Graphical User Interface mode.

7.1. How Kickstart Is Used

There's two cases in which a kickstart file is used differently. One is during the compose of installation media, and the other of course is during the compose of live media, or virtualization media.

7.1.1. Installation Media

In the case of installation media, the following settings are used:

repo
The repo command in kickstart is used when Revisor is configured to use the repositories configured in the kickstart file only. Use kickstart_repos = 1 to enable this feature, or set the appropriate checkbox in the Revisor GUI.
%packages
The %packages section in kickstart is used to determine the RPM payload on the installation media. It can include groups and packages, and exclude packages. It accepts wildcards, both in includes and excludes of packages (but not groups).

@core and @base

By default, groups @core and @base are included in the package manifest. You can specify @base to not be included, by using %packages --nobase, but @core cannot be excluded using a kickstart package manifest.

Using kickstart_exact, you can exclude @core and @base so that you need to explicitly select them in the kickstart package manifest.

Using kickstart_exact_nevra ...