Newbie Needs Help with Fedora Kickstart Installations

I am a Fedora newbie who needs help preparing for a Kickstart 
installation. I hope to be able to create several different Kickstart 
configuration files to test several different Fedora configurations.

My test environment is an Ethernet network with one Windows 2000 Pro 
box, one Mac G4 OS X box, and the Fedora installation target, a Dell 
Dimension 4100.

I would like to use the following scenario for my tests:

1. The Fedora installation CD-ROMs will have their contents transferred 
to an appropriate directory structure on the Win2000 box. The files 
will be served via HTTP (the Apache web server is running on that host).

2. If needed, Win2000 box can run a DHCP server to assign a static IP 
address to the Dell box during Fedora installation.

3. The Dell box will boot from Fedora installation CD 1.

4. I would like to have all the various Kickstart configuration files 
on the Win2000 box and have the installer access them via HTTP/Apache.

5. I would eventually like the option of adding additional RPMs to the 
Fedora/RPMS directory on the Win2000 server, with the goal of being 
able to test software not included in the Fedora core distribution.

I need help with the following items:

1. So far, I've had no luck getting a Kickstart installation to run. 
The Apache server log shows that the ks.cfg file is being requested and 
sent, but the installer seems to ignore it and proceed with a 
completely interactive installation. I'm using the boot option "linux 
ks=http://...".

2. If I add RPMs to the server, how does that affect files in 
Fedora/base? I understand "comps.xml" and have a tool on the Mac OS X 
box that can generate it and a Kickstart configuration file after 
"interviewing" the user to determine the packages that the user is 
likely to need. I do not understand the "hdlist", "hdlist2", 
"hdstg2.img", "netstg2.img", or "stage2.img" files, their roles in 
installation, and how to create them.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Gary Ford
Plaid Flannel Software


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