This story focuses solely on outlining the workflow for using bootable ISOs, without making any code changes to Satellite. It aims to describe the current tools and the supported versions of Satellite.

Workflow

(each step is described in detail below)

1. User has up-to-date EL-{8-9-10} OS with lorax package
2. Downloads the boot ISO
3. Customize the image
4. Create a host in Satellite.
5. Boot the host with the boot iso.
6. Profit.

Supported operating systems

• RHEL 10
• RHEL 9
• RHEL 8

These versions are the only ones that provide bootable ISOs on the download page.

Should be up-to-date OS (latest .y version)

Required packages

lorax rpm that provides mkksiso tool.{}

Rules

• The netboot ISO must be generated on the same system as the ISO. For example, on CentOS Stream 9, you should not generate the RHEL 10 iso.
• root account required
• The satellite host must be created before the host is powered on. It must match the MAC address.
• If Smart Proxy is used to retrieve templates from Satellite, the Templates feature must be enabled and configured.

Notes

I'm saying generating the image, but we should say "customizing the image" instead. Technically, we take an already-generated image and alter it for our use case.

The same goes for NetBoot iso and Bootable iso. The "bootable iso" is an official term in our docs.

Downloading the image

From https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/rhel, download the "Red Hat Enterprise Linux X.Y Boot ISO"

Generating an image for the Satellite

RHEL 10 example

# As a root
cd ~

dnf install -y lorax

mkksiso c "inst.ks=http://satelite-url-or-smart-proxy/unattended/provision inst.ks.sendmac ip=dhcp inst.cmdline" ./downloaded-rhel-10-boot.iso ./customized.iso

# Example for libvirt
virt-install   --name=netboot   --vcpus=4   --memory=4096 \
  --disk size=20   --os-variant=rhel10.0 \
  --network "network=default,mac=00:aa:bb:38:91:9c" \
  --connect qemu:///system --boot cdrom,hd \
  --cdrom=/path/to/customized.iso 

Adding files to the image

mkksiso --add /path/to/file 

Files added to the iso are then available in the `/run/install/repo/` directory

Links

• https://weldr.io/lorax/mkksiso.html
• https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/rhel
• https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/10/html/automatically_installing_rhel/boot-options-reference

If it is possible, we should mention these links in the official docs, they can provide deeper knowledge of the process.