How to Install Cobbler on Fedora CoreOS Latest

Cobbler is an open-source installation server that automates the provisioning of Linux installations. It's a powerful tool that makes the installation process faster and easier. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Cobbler on Fedora CoreOS latest.

Prerequisites

Before we proceed with the installation process, you need to have the following:

• A running instance of Fedora CoreOS latest
• A user account with sudo privileges
• Basic knowledge of Linux commands

Step 1: Install Cobbler Dependencies

Cobbler requires several dependencies to run correctly. We need to install them before we proceed.

sudo dnf install epel-release -y
sudo dnf install python3 python3-devel python3-django python3-rpm-macros python3-twisted pykickstart debmirror fence-agents syslinux tftp-server xinetd httpd dhcp -y

Once the installation completes successfully, we can proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Configure Cobbler

Before we start the Cobbler service, we need to configure it. To do that, we must edit the configuration file /etc/cobbler/settings.

sudo vi /etc/cobbler/settings

In this file, we need to update the following parameters:

server: 127.0.0.1
next_server: 127.0.0.1
manage_dhcp: 1
manage_dns: 1
pxe_just_once: 1
pxe_template_name: 'menu'

Save and close the file.

Step 3: Create a New User for Cobbler

Cobbler doesn't run as the root user. We need to create a new user account to run the Cobbler service.

sudo useradd cobbler
sudo passwd cobbler

Enter a secure password for the new user account.

Step 4: Restart Services

Next, we need to restart the following services to apply the new changes:

sudo systemctl restart httpd
sudo systemctl restart xinetd
sudo systemctl restart cobblerd

Step 5: Configure Firewall

We need to allow the following ports to access Cobbler from the external world:

• TCP/69 - TFTP
• TCP/80 - HTTP
• TCP/25151 - Cobbler daemon

To allow these ports, we can execute the following command:

sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=69/tcp --add-port=80/tcp --add-port=25151/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Step 6: Import Images

Finally, we can start importing the images into Cobbler. To do that, we need to execute the following command:

sudo cobbler import /path/to/your/iso/files

Once it completes, we can start installing the images via network boot.

Conclusion

Cobbler is a versatile installation server that automates the provisioning of Linux installations, making it faster and more comfortable. In this tutorial, we learned how to install Cobbler on Fedora CoreOS and configure it to run correctly. With the correct configuration, Cobbler can make the installation process faster and easier.