2. Install Guide¶
Setting up and running cobblerd is not a easy task. Knowledge in apache configuration (setting up ssl, virtual hosts, apache module and wsgi) is needed. Certificates and some server administration knowledge is required too.
Cobbler is available for installation in several different ways, through packaging systems for each distribution or directly from source.
Cobbler has both definite and optional prerequisites, based on the features you’d like to use. This section documents the definite prerequisites for both a basic installation and when building/installing from source.
2.1. Prerequisites¶
2.1.1. Packages¶
Please note that installing any of the packages here via a package manager (such as dnf/yum or apt) can and will require a large number of ancilary packages, which we do not document here. The package definition should automatically pull these packages in and install them along with Cobbler, however it is always best to verify these requirements have been met prior to installing Cobbler or any of its components.
First and foremost, Cobbler requires Python. Since 3.0.0 you will need Python 3. Cobbler also requires the installation of the following packages:
- createrepo_c
- httpd / apache2
- xorriso
- mod_wsgi / libapache2-mod-wsgi
- mod_ssl / libapache2-mod-ssl
- python-cheetah
- python-netaddr
- python-simplejson
- python-librepo
- PyYAML / python-yaml
- rsync
- syslinux
- tftp-server / atftpd
- dnf-plugins-core
If you decide to use the LDAP authentication, please also install manually in any case:
- python3-ldap3 (or via PyPi: ldap3)
Cobbler-web only has one other requirement besides Cobbler itself:
- Django / python-django
Koan can be installed apart from Cobbler, and has only the following requirement (besides python itself of course):
- python-simplejson
Note
Not installing all required dependencies will lead to stacktraces in your Cobbler installation.
2.1.2. Source¶
Note
Please be aware that on some distributions the python packages are named differently. On Debian based systems
everything which is named something-devel
is named something-dev
there. Also please remember that the case of
some packages is slightly different.
Warning
Some distributions still have Python 2 available. It is your responsibility to adjust the package names to Python3.
Installation from source requires the following additional software:
- git
- make
- python3-devel (on Debian based distributions
python3-dev
) - python3-Cheetah3
- python3-future
- python3-Sphinx
- python3-coverage
- openssl
- apache2-devel (and thus apache2)
- A TFTP server
2.2. Installation¶
Cobbler is available for installation for many Linux variants through their native packaging systems. However, the Cobbler project also provides packages for all supported distributions which is the preferred method of installation.
2.2.1. Packages¶
We leave packaging to downstream; this means you have to check the repositories provided by your distribution vendor. However we provide docker files for
- CentOS 7
- CentOS 8
- Debian 10 Buster
which will give you packages which will work better then building from source yourself.
2.2.2. Packages from source¶
For some platforms it’s also possible to build packages directly from the source tree.
2.3. RPM¶
$ make rpms
... (lots of output) ...
Wrote: /path/to/cobbler/rpm-build/cobbler-3.0.0-1.fc20.src.rpm
Wrote: /path/to/cobbler/rpm-build/cobbler-3.0.0-1.fc20.noarch.rpm
Wrote: /path/to/cobbler/rpm-build/koan-3.0.0-1.fc20.noarch.rpm
Wrote: /path/to/cobbler/rpm-build/cobbler-web-3.0.0-1.fc20.noarch.rpm
As you can see, an RPM is output for each component of Cobbler, as well as a source RPM. This command was run on a system running Fedora 20, hence the fc20 in the RPM name - this will be different based on the distribution you’re running.
2.4. DEB¶
To install Cobbler from source on a Debian-Based system, the following steps need to be made (tested on Debian Buster):
$ apt-get -y install make git
$ apt-get -y install python3-yaml python3-cheetah python3-netaddr python3-simplejson
$ apt-get -y install python3-future python3-distro python3-setuptools python3-sphinx python3-coverage
$ apt-get -y install pyflakes3 python3-pycodestyle
$ apt-get -y install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3
$ apt-get -y install atftpd
# In case you want cobbler-web
$ apt-get -y install python3-django
$ a2enmod proxy
$ a2enmod proxy_http
$ a2enmod rewrite
$ ln -s /srv/tftp /var/lib/tftpboot
$ systemctl restart apache2
Change all /var/www/cobbler
in /etc/apache2/conf.d/cobbler.conf
to /usr/share/cobbler/webroot/
Init script:
- add Required-Stop line
- path needs to be /usr/local/...
or fix the install location
2.5. Source¶
The latest source code is available through git:
$ git clone https://github.com/cobbler/cobbler.git
$ cd cobbler
The release30 branch corresponds to the official release version for the 3.0.x series. The master branch is the development series, and always uses an odd number for the minor version (for example, 3.1.0).
When building from source, make sure you have the correct prerequisites. The Makefile uses a script called distro_build_configs.sh which sets the correct environment variables. Be sure to source it if you do not use the Makefile. If all prerequisites are met, you can install Cobbler with the following command:
$ make install
This command will rewrite all configuration files on your system if you have an existing installation of Cobbler (whether it was installed via packages or from an older source tree).
To preserve your existing configuration files, snippets and automatic installation files, run this command:
$ make devinstall
To install the Cobbler web GUI, use these steps:
- Copy the systemd service file for cobblerd from
/etc/cobbler/cobblerd.service
to your systemd unit directory (/etc/systemd/system
) and adjustExecStart
from/usr/bin/cobblerd
to/usr/local/bin/cobblerd
. - Install
apache2-mod_wsgi-python3
or the package responsible for your distro. (On Debian:libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3
) - Enable the proxy module of Apache2 (
a2enmod proxy
or something similar) if not enabled. make webtest
- Copy
templates
andcobbler.wsgi
from theweb
folder to/usr/share/cobbler/web
. - Copy
settings.py
fromcobbler/web
to/usr/share/cobbler/web
and adjust theSECRET_KEY
there. - Restart Apache and
cobblerd
.
This will do a full install, not just the web GUI. make webtest
is a wrapper around make devinstall
, so your
configuration files will also be saved when running this command. Be adviced that we don’t copy the service file into
the correct directory and that the path to the binary may be wrong depending on the location of the binary on your
system. Do this manually and then you should be good to go. The same is valid for the Apache webserver config.
2.6. Relocating your installation¶
Often folks don’t have a very large /var
partition, which is what Cobbler uses by default for mirroring install
trees and the like.
You’ll notice you can reconfigure the webdir location just by going into /etc/cobbler/settings.yaml
, but it’s not
the best way to do things – especially as the packaging process does include some files and directories in the stock
path. This means that, for upgrades and the like, you’ll be breaking things somewhat. Rather than attempting to
reconfigure Cobbler, your Apache configuration, your file permissions, and your SELinux rules, the recommended course of
action is very simple.
- Copy everything you have already in
/var/www/cobbler
to another location – for instance,/opt/cobbler_data
- Now just create a symlink or bind mount at
/var/www/cobbler
that points to/opt/cobbler_data
.
Done. You’re up and running.
If you decided to access Cobbler’s data store over NFS (not recommended) you really want to mount NFS on
/var/www/cobbler
with SELinux context passed in as a parameter to mount versus the symlink. You may also have to
deal with problems related to rootsquash. However if you are making a mirror of a Cobbler server for a multi-site setup,
mounting read only is OK there.
Also Note: /var/lib/cobbler
can not live on NFS, as this interferes with locking (“flock”) Cobbler does around it’s
storage files.