How to support disabling of activation of first kickstart network command?

Hi,

For compatibility with RHEL 6, and kickstarts out there, we always 
activate the device of the first network command in installer 
environment (we are assuming --activate option). The problem is that 
there is no way to turn this default off.

There are BZs appearing that hit this limitation [2]. The use case is:
- configure a device for installation in dracut stage (to fetch 
kickstart, or perhaps even the payload) - via boot options
- use another configuration of the device for target system - via kickstart

Activating the target system configuration in installer (after 
switchroot) can result for example in unreachable source, 
disconnected/stalled nfs mount of installer image, ...

I can see three options to support such use cases:

1) A workaround: use dummy first network command with non-existing 
device. Anaconda will just ignore it:

network --device=NONE
network --device=ens3 --ipv6=2001::1/64 --gateway=2001::2 --noipv4

Or in case hostname is configured, use this as first network command

network --device=NONE
network --device=ens3 --ipv6=2001::1/64 --gateway=2001::2 --noipv4

... well, it is just an ugly workaround

2) Change the behaviour - treat the first network command same as other

network --device=ens3 --ipv6=2001::1/64 --gateway=2001::2 --noipv4

... I am afraid we can't afford such a change with respect to users 
already relying on current behaviour.IIRC

3) New network kickstart command option --donotactivate with lower 
priority than --activate. Which means it would effectively apply only to 
the first network command, for other commands it is the default.

network --device=ens3 --ipv6=2001::1/64 --gateway=2001::2 --noipv4 
--donotactivate

... does not seem very elegant

In my opinion, for RHEL 7 (and maybe even for master) we should go with 3)

What do you think?


Radek

[1] or reactivate it with kickstart configuration in case it has been 
already activated in dracut
[2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1338631 
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1277975