I have found anaconda command line options on URL
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda_Boot_Options?rd=Anaconda/Options
and anaconda is available as a package that SL6 will install. I have
not found how to manually invoke anaconda from a running system to use
the files on the install/upgrade DVD as a source but with specific
command line options to force anaconda to ignore specific drives. For
example, supposedly the command line option to anaconda:
repo=cdrom:<device> will force anaconda to get the DVD if, presumably,
device is say /dev/sg1 that is the DVD drive, but will anaconda then
proceed in the standard GUI format? Can anaconda from a running hard
drive system convert to a RAM based "disk file" system as used during
the standard upgrade booted from a bootable DVD (e.g., the current SL
6.4 ISO bootable install/upgrade DVD) so that the running hard drives
can have images upgraded (e.g., write a file and then sync the actual
hard drive)?
kickstart has the syntax
ignoredisk –drives=sda,sdb,sdc
that allows one to bypass any work on the specifid /dev disks (e.g.,
/dev/sda, etc., from the above list). Does anaconda have a similar feature?
Again, thanks for any insight or syntactically correct command(s) to
accomplish what I am attempting to do (upgrade a system as though it had
only one hard drive, ignoring others, without physically opening an
enclosure and disconnecting hard drives).
Yasha Karant
On 04/08/2013 01:41 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
My workstation has the following disk partition setup:
/dev/sda10 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda5 / ext2 defaults
1 1
/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda3 /oldhome ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda8 /opt ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda2 /usr ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda7 /usr/local ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda11 /usr1 ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda9 /var ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda6 /vmware ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda12 /usr2 ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc5 /oldroot ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc1 /oldboot ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc2 /oldusr ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc3 /home ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc6 /oldvmware ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc7 /oldusr/local ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc8 /oldopt ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc9 /oldvar ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdc11 /oldusr1 ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdb1 /mnt-ntfs1 ntfs-3g defaults 1 2
/dev/sdb2 /mnt-ntfs2 ntfs-3g defaults 1 2
When I attempt to use the current SL 6.4 X86-64 standalone installation
DVD to upgrade, anaconda fails with a diagnostic message that I cannot
seem to be able to save (the log file is not created on a physical hard
drive). Basically, anaconda does not like the ntfs format disk nor the
second linux disk. Is there a way to tell anaconda to use a particular
drive (say /dev/sda) and fully ignore others (say /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc)
when running anaconda? Can anaconda be run from the DVD from a running
linux system that mounts the DVD containing the upgrade image(s)? If
not, is there another methodology (say an appropriate invocation of yum
but using the DVD as the files from which the upgrade is generated)?
If there is URL or other documentation that (easily) explains the above
steps, that will be sufficient.
Current environment is a previous SL 6 X86-64.
Yasha Karant
