Anaconda Boot Options

Out-of-date
The information on this page is out-of-date and some parts may be inaccurate for Fedora 17 and later. There is a draft of updated documentation available here.

For more information on using Anaconda options, refer to "Appendix A. Boot Options" in the Fedora Installation Guide. For example, the Fedora 41 version: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/41/html/Installation_Guide/ch-Boot-x86.html#s2-x86-starting-bootopts

askmethod

Fedora 16 and earlier

Do not automatically use the CD-ROM as the install source if we detect installation media in your CD-ROM drive: instead prompt for a source during the first stage of installation.

Fedora 17 and 18

Has no effect.

Fedora 19 and later

Do not automatically configure the Installation Source spoke, but require the user to enter it and choose an option. If you don't want to wait for the default configuration to be processed before you can enter the spoke and change it, you can pass this option. See Bug #889887.

asknetwork

Prompt for network configuration in the first stage of installation regardless of installation method.

Obsolete in Fedora 17
The asknetwork parameter is obsolete in Fedora 17 and later releases. If specified it will have no effect.

autostep

Advance to the next screen automatically. This is mostly useful for debugging.

blacklist=<module>

Do not automatically load module <module>, even if the hardware exists on the system.

cmdline

Force command line install mode. This mode simply prints out text and does not allow any interactivity. All options must be specified either in a kickstart file or on the command line.

console=ttyS0

Turn on serial console support and display anaconda on serial console instead of graphical console. Settings will not carry over to the installed system without serial option.

serial

Carry over console settings to the installed system.

dd

Use a driver disk.

driverdisk

See dd

debug=1

Add a debug button to the UI that allows dropping into a python debugger.

dhcpclass=<class>

Sends a custom DHCP vendor class identifier. ISC's dhcpcd can inspect this value using "option vendor-class-identifier".

dhcptimeout=<sec>

Stop attempting to get a DHCP lease after <sec> seconds.

display=<DISPLAY>

Sets the $DISPLAY environment variable.

dns=<dns>

Comma separated list of nameservers to use for a network installation.

Dracut syntax required in Fedora 17 and later
The syntax for specifying network configuration which uses the dns, essid, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask, mtu and wepkey parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

essid=<essid>

Connect to the wireless network given by <essid> for a network installation. If used without wepkey or wpakey, unencrypted connection is created.

Dracut syntax required in Fedora 17 and later
The syntax for specifying network configuration which uses the dns, essid, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask, mtu and wepkey parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

ethtool=<opts>

Specify certain additional network device settings. Valid options are duplex={full,half} and speed={1000,100,10}. Multiple options may be given as a string separated by spaces and surrounded by double quotes.

gateway=<gw>

Gateway to use for a network installation.

Dracut syntax required in Fedora 17 and later
The syntax for specifying network configuration which uses the dns, essid, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask, mtu and wepkey parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

gdb=IP:PORT

Run gdbserver in loader, attached to IP:PORT (eg. gdb=0.0.0.0:2345)

On the host you need the anaconda-debuginfo package's contents to properly debug the binary. Run gdb /path/to/loader.debug and then specify the loader source directory with the dir command. Connect to the remote target with target remote 1.2.3.4:2345.

graphical

Force graphical install. Required to have ftp/http use GUI. A graphical install implies that the installed system will boot up into runlevel 5, using whichever display manager is in use by the default desktop (gdm for GNOME, kdm for KDE).

headless

Specify that the machine being installed onto does not have any display hardware, and that anaconda should not probe for it.

ip=<ip>

IP to use for a network installation, use 'dhcp' for DHCP.

Dracut syntax required in Fedora 17 and later
The syntax for specifying network configuration which uses the dns, essid, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask, mtu and wepkey parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

ipv6=<ipv6>

IPv6 address to use for a network installation. This can be the static address in form <IPv6 address>[/<prefix length>], e.g. 3ffe:ffff:0:1::1/128 (if prefix is omitted 64 is assumed), "auto" for address assignment based on automatic neighbor discovery, or "dhcp" to use the DHCPv6 protocol.

Dracut syntax required in Fedora 17 and later
The syntax for specifying network configuration which uses the dns, essid, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask, mtu and wepkey parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

keymap=<keymap>

Keyboard layout to use. Valid values are those which can be used for the keyboard kickstart command.

ks

Gives the location of the kickstart file to be used for installation. If only ks is given, the file is assumed to be on NFS. The ks parameter may take these other forms:

• ks=cdrom:<device>[:<path>] If no path is given, /ks.cfg is used by default.
• ks=file:<path> (path = 'fd0/ks.cfg', for example)
• ks=ftp://<path>
• ks=hd:<dev>:<path> (dev = 'hda1', for example)
• ks=http://<host>/<path>
• ks=nfs[:options]:<server>:<path>
• ks=bd:<biosdev>:<path> (biosdev = '80p1', for example, note this does not work for BIOS RAID sets)

ksdevice

Takes one of 4 types of argument which tells install what network device to use for kickstart from network:

• An argument like 'eth0' naming a specific interface
• An argument like 00:12:34:56:78:9a indicating the MAC address of a specific interface
• The keyword 'link' indicating that the first interface with link up
• The keyword 'bootif' indicating that the MAC address indicated by the BOOTIF command line option will be used to locate the boot interface. BOOTIF is automagically supplied by pxelinux when you include the option 'IPAPPEND 2' in your pxelinux.cfg file
• The keyword 'ibft' - use device configured with MAC address in iBFT

kssendmac

Adds HTTP headers to ks=http:// requests that can be helpful for provisioning systems. Includes MAC address of all network interfaces in HTTP headers of the form "X-RHN-Provisioning-MAC-0: eth0 01:23:45:67:89:ab".

kssendsn

Adds an HTTP header to ks=http:// requests that can be helpful for provisioning systems. Includes the system's serial number (according to dmidecode) in an HTTP header of the form "X-System-Serial-Number: 1234567890".

lang=<lang>

Language to use for the installation. This should be a language which is valid to be used with the lang kickstart command.

leavebootorder

Boot the drives in their existing order, to override the default of booting into the newly installed drive on Power Systems servers and EFI systems. This is useful for systems that, for example, should network boot first before falling back to a local boot.

Available in Fedora 18
The leavebootorder option is new to Fedora 18.

linksleep=<delay>

Check the network device for a link every second for <delay> seconds.

loglevel=<level>

Set the minimum level required for messages to be logged on a terminal (log files always contain messages of all levels). Values for <level> are debug, info, warning, error, and critical. The default value is info.

mediacheck

Activates loader code to give user option of testing integrity of install source (if an ISO-based method).

method=

This option is deprecated in favor of repo=. For now, it does the same thing as repo= but will be removed at a later date.

mtu=<num>

Set the MTU (maximum transmission unit) used during network installs to the given number. Uses the network stack default if this option is not specified.

Dracut syntax required in Fedora 17 and later
The syntax for specifying network configuration which uses the dns, essid, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask, mtu and wepkey parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

multilib

Enable yum's multlib_policy of "all" instead of the default of "best".

netmask=<nm>

Netmask to use for a network installation.

Dracut syntax required in Fedora 17 and later
The syntax for specifying network configuration which uses the dns, essid, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask, mtu and wepkey parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

nicdelay=<sec>

Sleep for <sec> seconds before trying again to bring up the network.

nodmraid

Disable support for dmraid.

nofirewire

Do not load support for firewire devices.

nogpt

Do not create GPT disklabels.

noipv4

Disable IPv4 networking during installation.

noipv6

Disable IPv6 networking during installation.

nokill

A debugging option that prevents anaconda from terminating all running programs when a fatal error occurs.

nomount

Don't automatically mount any installed Linux partitions in rescue mode.

nomemcheck

Since Fedora 17: Disable the check which usually causes anaconda to abort if a safe minimum amount of memory is not found. Of course, any attempt to install with less than the safe minimum amount of memory may fail and is unsupported.

nompath

Disable support for multipath devices.

nopass

Don't pass keyboard/mouse info to stage 2 installer, good for testing keyboard and mouse config screens in stage2 installer during network installs.

noprobe

Do not attempt to detect hw, prompts user instead.

noselinux

Disable SELinux on the installed system.

Broken in Fedora 16 and later
See RH Bugzilla #807703

noshell

Do not put a shell on tty2 during install.

nousb

Do not load USB support (helps if install hangs early sometimes).

noverifyssl

Prevents Anaconda from verifying the ssl certificate for all https connections with an exception of the additional kickstart repos (where --noverifyssl can be set per repo).

proxy=[protocol://][username[:password]@]host[:port]

Use the given proxy settings when performing an HTTP/HTTPS/FTP installation.

repo=

This option tells anaconda where to find the packages for installation. This option must point to a valid yum repository. It is analagous to the older method= option, but repo= makes it more clear exactly what is meant. This option may appear only once on the command line. It corresponds to the kickstart command install (whereas kickstart command repo is used for additional repositories). As of Anaconda 16.12 you can (optionally) add a specific .iso file to the path.

The following forms are accepted for repo=:

• repo=cdrom:<device>
• repo=ftp://[user:password@]<host>/<path>
• repo=http://<host>/<path>
• repo=hd:<device>:/<path>

Look for ISO images on the hard drive partition given by device (/dev/sda1, for instance). This may not be a partition that will be formatted during installation later. These should be ISO images, not an exploded tree on the hard drive. device can be a device name, LABEL=, or UUID=.

• repo=hd:LABEL=<label>:/<path>
• repo=hd:UUID=<uuid>:/<path>

As repo=hd:<device>, but you can specify a partition by label or UUID.

• repo=nfs[:options]:<server>:/<path>
• repo=nfsiso[:options]:<server>:/<path>

Look for ISO images on the NFS volume with the given server and path. These should be ISO images, not loopback mounted. In Fedora 17, if the installer is booted from a full image - the DVD or network install images - the NFSv4 protocol will be used; if the installer is booted directly from a kernel/initrd pair (for e.g., in a PXE installation, or using virt-install), the NFSv3 protocol will be used.

rescue

Run rescue environment.

resolution=<mode>

Run installer in mode specified, '1024x768' for example.

selinux[=0]

Disables selinux entirely. Defaults to on.

sshd

Starts up sshd during system installation. You can then ssh in while the installation progresses to debug or monitor. Passwords are controlled via the kickstart sshpw command. By default, the root account has a blank password, so if the sshd option is specified, anyone can login as root and have full access to the machine during installation.

stage2=

Specifies a path to a repository containing a stage2 (squashfs.img) file instead of to an installation source. Follows the same syntax as repo=. If this parameter is provided, it takes precedence over all other methods of finding the install.img. Otherwise, anaconda will attempt to find the install.img first on any existing CD, and then from the location given by repo=.

If only stage2= is given without repo=, anaconda will use whatever repos the installed system would have enabled by default for installation. For instance, an install of a Fedora release will attempt to use the Fedora mirrorlist given by /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo from that release.

syslog=<host>[:<port>]

Once installation is up and running, send log messages to the syslog process on <host>, and optionally, on TCP port <port>. Requires the remote syslog process to accept incoming connections.

text

Force text mode install. This will install only base packages for a minimal system and implies that the installed system will boot up in runlevel 3 instead of to the graphical login screen.

traceback

Since Fedora 17. Raise exception in the GUI (for testing purposes). DO NOT USE THIS IF YOU WANT TO INSTALL THE SYSTEM.

updates

Prompt for removable media containing updates (bug fixes).

Obsolete in Fedora 17
The updates parameter with no arguments is obsolete in Fedora 17 and later releases. If specified it will have no effect. Passing the parameter with a location argument, as described below, will continue to work.

updates=<url>

Image containing updates over FTP or HTTP.

upgradeany

Don't require an /etc/redhat-release that matches the expected syntax to upgrade.

usefbx

Use the framebuffer X driver instead of attempting to use a hardware-specific one.

utf8

Set the TERM variable to vt100.

virtiolog=<port_name>

Forward logs through the character device at /dev/virtio-ports/<port_name>. See also Anaconda/Logging.

vnc

Enable vnc-based installation. You will need to connect to the machine using a vnc client application. A vnc install implies that the installed system will boot up in runlevel 3 instead of to the graphical login screen. The vnc session will be shared. Consider setting a vnc password.

vncport=<port>

Specify a port for the vnc server to run on. The default is 5901.

vncconnect=<host>[:<port>]

Once installation is up and running, connect to the vnc client named <host>, and optionally use port <port>.

vncpassword=<password>

Enable a password for the vnc connection. This will prevent someone from inadvertently connecting to the vnc-based installation. Requires vnc option to be specified as well. If you have specified vncconnect the <password> will not be used unless connection to host is not possible.

wepkey=<key>

Use <key> as the wireless key when doing a network installation via a wireless network. Requires use of essid.

Dracut syntax required in Fedora 17 and later
The syntax for specifying network configuration which uses the dns, essid, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask, mtu and wepkey parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

xdriver=<driver>

Use <driver> as the X driver to use during installation as well as on the installed system.