Chapter 28. Installation and Booting Automatic partitioning now works when installing on a single FBA DASD on IBM z Series Previously, when installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 on IBM z Series systems with a single Fixed Block Architecture (FBA) Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) with the cms disk layout as the target, automatic partitioning failed because the installer attempted to create multiple partitions on the device, which is not supported on cms-formatted FBA DASDs. This caused the installation finish with a corrupted disk. With this update, the installer first creates a msdos partition table on the target DASD, which allows up to three partitions on the device. As long as the installer only creates three or fewer partitions, the installation will succeed. Note that it is recommended to use the autopart --nohome Kickstart option to ensure that the installer does not create a separate /home partition. (BZ#1214407) Activation of bridge configured in Kickstart no longer fails when Kickstart proceeds from the disk Previously, if the bridge device was configured in a Kickstart file and the Kickstart file was fetched from the disk, the lack of network connection meant that the bridge was not created and the installation failed at an early stage. With this update, the bridge Kickstart configuration is passed to the dracut tool at an early stage. As a result, dracut can create and activate the bridge device even when no network is required at the early stage of installation. (BZ#1373360) Anaconda now correctly allows creating users without passwords Previously, it was not possible to deselect the Require a password to use this account option in the Create User screen during an interactive installation. As a consequence, all user accounts created during the installation required a password. This bug has been fixed, and creating users with no password is now possible. (BZ#1380277) Minimal installation no longer installs open-vm-tools-desktop and dependencies The open-vm-tools-desktop package was previously marked as default in the @platform-vmware package group (Virtualization utilities and drivers for VMWare). This group is automatically installed by Anaconda when it detects that the installation is using a VMWare hypervisor. At the same time, this package has many dependencies including a large number of X libraries which are not useful in a minimal installation, and this was causing Anaconda to install a high number of unnecessary packages. The open-vm-tools-desktop package is now optional in the @platform-vmware group, and therefore not being installed by default. The other package in the group, open-vm-tools , remains mandatory and is therefore installed by default. (BZ# 1408694 ) Anaconda no longer generates invalid Kickstart files Previously, if a Kickstart file was used during an installation which defined some LVM logical volumes absolutely (the --size= parameter) and others relatively (the --percent= parameter), the resulting Kickstart file which is saved on the installed system, anaconda-ks.cfg , defined all logical volumes using both of these parameters. These parameters are mutually exclusive, and the generated Kickstart file was therefore invalid. With this update, Anaconda correctly handles usage of relative and absolute sizes, and the resulting post-installation Kickstart files are valid. (BZ#1317370) Anaconda no longer fails to identify RAID arrays specified by name Previously, when a RAID array was specified by name in the ignoredisk or clearpart command in a Kickstart file, the installation could not proceed because RAID names are not available during initial stages of the installation. This update improves RAID support by ensuring that Anaconda also checks devices in /dev/md/ for a matching name. For example, if the Kickstart file contains the command ignoredisk --only-use=myraid , Anaconda will now also attempt to find an array located at /dev/md/myraid . This allows the installer to locate RAID arrays specified by name at any point during the installation, and enables specifying only RAID array names in Kickstart files. (BZ#1327439) Kickstart no longer accepts passwords that are too short Previously, when using a Kickstart file to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, the Anaconda installer immediately accepted passwords shorter than the minimal length defined by the --minlen Kickstart option, if the password was sufficiently strong (quality value 50 or above by default). This bug has been fixed, and the --minlen option now works even with strong passwords. (BZ#1356975) Initial Setup now correctly opens in a graphical interface over SSH on IBM z Systems Previously, when connecting to an IBM z Systems machine using SSH, the text version of the Initial Setup interface opened even if X forwarding was enabled. This bug has been fixed, and the graphical version of Initial Setup now opens correctly when using X forwarding. (BZ#1378082) Extra time is no longer needed for installation when geolocation services are enabled When installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 with limited or no internet access, the installer previously paused for several minutes in the Installation Summary screen with the Security Policy section being Not ready . This was caused by the geolocation service being unable to determine the system's location. Consequently, the installation could not proceed before the service timed out. With this update, the geolocation service correctly times out if it can not find the location within 3 seconds, and the installation can proceed almost immediately even with limited or no network connection. (BZ#1380224) The ifup-aliases script now sends gratuitous ARP updates when adding new IP addresses When moving one or more IP aliases from one server to another, associated IP addresses may be unreachable for some time, depending on the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) time-out value that is configured in the upstream router. This bug has been addressed in the initscripts package, and ifup-aliases now updates other systems on the network significantly faster in this situation. (BZ# 1367554 ) The netconsole utility now launches correctly Previously, if nameserver address lines were not present in the /etc/resolv.conf file, launching netconsole sometimes resulted in an error and netconsole did not start. The initscripts package has been updated, and netconsole now starts correctly in this situation. (BZ# 1278521 ) rc.debug kernel allows easier debugging of initscripts This enhancement introduces the rc.debug option for the kernel command line. Adding the rc.debug option to the kernel command line prior to booting produces a log of all the activity of the initscripts files during the boot and termination processes. The log appears as part of the /var/log/dmesg log file. As a result, adding the rc.debug option to the kernel command line enables easier debugging of initscripts if needed. (BZ# 1394191 ) The system no longer fails to terminate with /usr on iSCSI or NFS In versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, the termination of the system sometimes failed and the system remained hung if the /usr folder was mounted over a network (for example, NFS or iSCSI ). This issue has been resolved, and the system should now shut down normally. (BZ# 1369790 , BZ# 1446171 ) rhel-autorelabel no longer corrupts the filesystem In versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, forcing the SELinux autorelabel by creating the /.autorelabel file sometimes partially corrupted the filesystem. This made the system unbootable. A patch has been applied to prevent this behaviour. As a result, applying the autorelabel operation using the touch /.autorelabel command is no more expected to corrupt the filesystem. (BZ# 1385272 ) The rpmbuild command now correctly processes Perl requires Previously, a bug in rpm caused my variable = << blocks to be treated as code instead of string constants when building packages using the rpmbuild command. This caused rpm to add unintended dependencies to packages being built in cases where the variable contained the word use followed by another word. With this update, rpm correctly skips these blocks when searching for dependencies, and packages no longer contain unintended dependencies. (BZ#1378307) Installer now correctly recognizes BIOS RAID devices when using ignoredisk in Kickstart Previously, some BIOS RAID devices were not correctly recognized during installation when using a Kickstart file with the ignoredisk --onlyuse=<bios raid name> command. This caused the installation to fail and report lack of free space because the device could not be used. With this update, Anaconda recognizes BIOS RAID devices reliably when they are specified in a Kickstart file, and installations no longer fail in these circumstances. (BZ#1327463) Single quotes now work for values in the ifcfg-* files Previously, it was only possible to specify values by using double quotes in the ifcfg-* files. Using single quotes did not work. With this update, single quotes work too, for example: (BZ#1428574) rhel-import-state no longer changes access permissions for /dev/shm/ , allowing the system to boot correctly Previously, problems during the boot-up process occurred due to the introduction of a new script in a dracut update. The new script changed the access permission to the /dev/shm/ directory when the dracut utility placed the directory to the /run/initramfs/state/ . With this update, rhel-import-state no longer changes the access permissions for /dev/shm/ , and the system starts correctly. (BZ# 1406254 ) Backward compatibility enabled for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 initscripts The initscripts files in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 have been patched to enable backward compatibility and to prevent possible regressions when doing an upgrade from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. (BZ# 1392766 ) initscripts now specifies /etc/rwtab and /etc/statetab as configuration files Previously, a reinstallation of the initscripts package replaced the /etc/rwtab and /etc/statetab files. If these files had contained user's configuration, the reinstallation process overwrote it. The initscripts package has been updated to specify the /etc/rwtab and /etc/statetab files as configuration files. If these files are modified by the user, performing the reinstallation now creates the *.rpmnew files containing the new configuration in the /etc/ folder. As a result of this update, a reinstallation of the initscripts package leaves the /etc/rwtab and /etc/statetab files intact. (BZ#1434075) The ifup script no longer slows down NetworkManager Previously, the ifup script was very slow when notifying NetworkManager . This particularly affected Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) network startup times. A patch has been applied to initscripts, and the described problem no longer occurs. (BZ# 1408219 ) Gnome Initial Setup can now be disabled by the firstboot --disable command in kickstart With this update, the gnome-initial-setup package has been fixed to respect the firstboot --disable kickstart command. As a result, Gnome Initial Setup can be robustly turned off during a kickstart installation and users are no longer forced to create user account on the first boot under the described circumstances as long as the installation kickstart contains the firstboot --disable command. (BZ# 1226819 ) Setting NM_CONTROLLED now works correctly across all the ifcfg-* files When the NM_CONTROLLED=no parameter was set for an interface in its ifcfg-* file, other interfaces in some cases inherited this configuration. This behaviour prevented the NetworkManager daemon from controlling these interfaces. The issue has now been resolved, and setting the NM_CONTROLLED parameter now works correctly across all the ifcfg-* files. As a result, the user can choose which interface is controlled by NetworkManager , and which is not. (BZ# 1374837 ) The dhclient command no longer incorrectly uses localhost when hostname is not set The dhclient command incorrectly sent localhost to the DHCP server as the host name when the hostname variable was not set. This has been fixed, and dhclient no longer sends an incorrect host name in these situations. (BZ#1398686) The initscripts utility now handles LVM2 correctly Previously, later versions of the initscripts utility made use of a new --ignoreskippedcluster option for the vgchange command during boot. This option was missing in earlier versions of the lvm2 utilities. As a consequence, systems using earlier versions of the Logical Volume Manager device mapper (LVM2) could fail to boot correctly. With this update, the initscripts RPM indicates the version of lvm2 required, and if a sufficient version is installed, systems with LVM2 boot correctly. (BZ#1398683) The service network stop command no longer attempts to stop services which are already stopped Previously, when a tunnel interface was present, the service network stop command incorrectly attempted to stop services which had been stopped already, displaying an error message. This bug has been fixed, and the service network stop command now stops only running services. (BZ#1398679) ifdown on a loopback device now works correctly In versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, executing the ifdown command on a local loopback device failed to remove the device. A patch has been applied, and the removal of an existing loopback device using ifdown now succeeds. (BZ#1398678) Scripts in initscripts handle static IPv6 address assignment more robustly Previously, scripts in the initscripts package sometimes failed to correctly assign static IPv6 addresses if a Router Advertisement (RA) was received during system initialization. This bug has been fixed, and now the statically assigned address is correctly applied in the described situation. (BZ#1398671) Deselecting an add-on option in Software Selection no longer requires a double-click When installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, the user had to double-click in order to deselect an add-on checkbox after a Base environment change. The bug occurred in the Software Selection dialogue of the graphical installation. With this update, the system no longer requires double-clicking when deselecting an option after a Base environment change. A single click is sufficient. (BZ# 1404158 ) The target system hostname can be configured via installer boot options in Kickstart installations In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, the hostname specified via the Anaconda installer boot options during a Kickstart installation was previously incorrectly not set for installed system and the default localhost.localdomain hostname value was used instead. With this update, Anaconda has been fixed to apply the hostname set by the boot option to the target system configuration. As a result, users can now configure the target system hostname via the installer boot options also for Kickstart installations. (BZ#1441337) Anaconda no longer asks for Installation Source verification after network configuration Previously, during an Anaconda installation from a repository, when the user changed network settings after repository packages had already been selected, the Installation Source required verification. This request was made even when the repository was still reachable after the network change, resulting in an unnecessary step. With this update, the Anaconda installer keeps the original source repository and verifies whether it is still reachable after the Network & Hostname configuration. As a result, the user is only required to reconfigure the Installation Source if the original repository is not reachable. (BZ#1358778) Disks using the OEMDRV label are now correctly ignored during automatic installation The OEMDRV disk label is used on driver update disks during installation. Due to a bug, disks with this label were being used by Anaconda as installation targets during automatic installations, which meant they were being erased and used as part of the installed system storage. This update ensures that Anaconda ignores disks with this label unless they are explicitly selected as installation targets, and the problem no longer occurs. (BZ# 1412022 )

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