Installation
============

This section describes the various installation methods, e.g. PXE.

PXE Server
----------

The PXE server is ``pxeserv01.psi.ch``, running SL 5.1.

Directory structure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The usual ``/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg`` setup.  The ``pxelinux.cfg``
directory contains the following subdirectories:

- ``Boot``: could be Windows-related
- ``centos``: CentOS 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2
- ``dl``: diskless systems
- ``pxelinux.cfg``: PXELINUX configuration
- ``scientific``: Scientific Linux, 3.01 -> 7.0, partly obsolete
- ``tools``: 


PXELINUX
--------

The PXELINUX configuration files are in ``pxeserv01:/tftpboot``.

The ``default`` file currently contains 127 labels.


Scientific Linux 6, 64bit
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One thing to note is that the
[Kickstart file](http://linux.web.psi.ch/kickstart/configs/sl64-64-desk-stable-ks.cfg)
is modified during installation by the
[``ks_pre.sh``](http://linux.web.psi.ch/dist/scientific/64/kickstart/bin/ks_pre.sh)
script.


Kickstart
---------

The documentation on Kickstart files is currently based on
``sl64-64-desk-stable-ks.cfg``, the default Kickstart file for SL6.

In the ``%pre`` section a distribution-specific script ``ks_pre.sh``
is downloaded and executed.  Errors are not handled.  The script
*modifies* the Kickstart file.  The latter contains markers
``#BEGIN_MAIN`` and ``#END_MAIN`` to mark the region to be modified.


Custom keys
~~~~~~~~~~~

The Kickstart files defines variables ``INIT_KEYS`` and
``APPEND_KEYS`` and exports them for use by ``ks_pre.sh``.  The latter
attempts to download an environment file and a script
``custom_pre.sh`` for each key and sources them.

The custom key related files are stored below
``/afs/psi.ch/software/linux/dist/scientific/$OSVERSION/custom/``.
Examples for custom keys are ``DesktopTesting`` and ``DesktopStable``.