Chapter 1: Kickstart Installations

What Are Kickstart Installations?

The basic Red Hat Linux installation process is covered in Appendix A of this book, and in the Official Red Hat Linux User’s Guide (Red Hat Press/Wiley, 2003).

While the Red Hat Linux installation process is generally straightforward, it does require a fairly high degree of attention from the user. This level of interactivity sometimes makes the process unsuitable, for example, in situations where a large number of machines must be installed in a short amount of time, or in any situation where the administrator’s time is at a premium.

To answer this need, Red Hat created the kickstart installation method. In a nutshell, kickstart lets the administrator automate the installation process. Using kickstart, the administrator can create a single file containing the answers to all the questions that are normally asked during a typical Red Hat Linux installation. With this method, a single kickstart file can be used to install multiple machines, requiring only as much time from the administrator as it takes to initiate the process.