cobbler

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Module Description
3. Setup
   • What cobbler affects
   • Setup requirements
   • Beginning with cobbler
4. Usage
5. Reference
6. Limitations

Overview

This module manages installation and configuration cobbler itself as well as cobbler objects such as distros, profiles, systems and repos.

Module Description

Module installs cobbler servers. Module performs cobbler configuration, including main configuration file, and cobbler modules. Module provides custom types for cobbler objects:

• cobbler_distro - cobbler distributions
• cobbler_repo - cobbler repositories
• cobbler_profile - cobbler profiles
• cobbler_system - cobbler systems

Setup

What cobbler affects

• Module installs (including dependencies):

  • cobbler
  • syslinux
  • syslinux-tftpboot

  This can be overwritten using package parameter of cobbler class

• Modules manages files:

  • /etc/cobbler/settings
  • /etc/cobbler/modules.conf

• Affected services:

  • cobblerd

Setup Requirements

This module uses custom types and providers so pluginsync must be enabled.

Beginning with cobbler

For a basic installation setup with a default configuration parameters it's just enough to declare cobbler module inside the manifest

class {'cobbler':}

Usage

To pass any configuration parameters the cobbler_config parameter is used. cobbler_config is merged with default_cobbler_config from params.pp and pushed to /etc/cobbler/settings file

cobbler_config must be a hash that contains cobbler configuration options:

$cobbler_settings = {
    'server'        => '192.168.0.1',
    'next_server'   => '192.168.0.1',
    'pxe_just_once' => 1
}

class {'cobbler':
  cobbler_config => $cobbler_settings,
}

For cobbler mopdules configuration _cobbler_modules_config parameter is used. As well as cobbler_config modules configuration passed to the class is merged with default_modules_config from params.pp

$modules_settings = {
  'dns'  => {'module' => 'manage_dnsmasq'},
}

class {'cobbler':
  cobbler_modules_config => $modules_settings,
}

Cobbler objects are managed using custom types. One of the ways to create distributions, repositories, profiles and systems is to pass hash to create_resources function. For example:

• Using hiera:

cobbler::distros:
  centos7-x86_64:
    ensure: present
    comment: 'CentOS7 Distribution'
    arch: x86_64
    path: /mnt
    initrd: '/var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-minimal-x86_64/images/pxeboot/initrd.img'
    kernel: '/var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/centos7-minimal-x86_64/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz'
    owners:
      - admin

create_resources('cobbler_distro', hiera('cobbler::distros')

or

• Using puppet hash

$interfaces = {
  'eth0'       => {
    ip_address => '192.168.1.6',
    netmask    => '255.255.255.0',
    if_gateway => '192.168.1.1',
  },
  'eth1'       => {
    ip_address => '192.168.100.10',
    netmask    => '255.255.255.0',
    if_gateway => '192.168.100.1',
  },
  'eth2'       => {
    ip_address => '192.168.200.11',
    netmask    => '255.255.255.0',
    if_gateway => '192.168.200.1',
  }
}
$systems = {
  'testhost01' => {
    ensure     => 'present',
    profile    => 'cvo_mgmt_server',
    interfaces => $interfaces,
    hostname   => 'testhost01',
}

create_resources('cobble_system', $systems)

Reference

That module contains:

• Custom types:
  • cobbler_distro
  • cobbler_repo
  • cobbler_profile
  • cobbler_system

Limitations

• osfamily => RedHat
• if getenforce == Enforcing
  • setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect_cobbler 1
  • setsebool -P httpd_serve_cobbler_files 1
  • semanage fcontext -a -t cobbler_var_lib_t "/var/lib/tftpboot/boot(/.*)?"