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Out-of-date
The information on this page is out-of-date and some parts may be inaccurate for Fedora 17 and later.

Introduction

For more information on using Anaconda options, refer to the appropriate Installation Guide for your release. Developer documentation, which may include information about boot options, is available in the docs directory of the Anaconda distribution.

For information about options available when running Anaconda from the command line, please visit the Anaconda command line options page.

Boot Options

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.

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.

bond=<bondname>:<bondslaves>:[:<options>]

Create bonded network interface. This is dracut option, see dracut documentation for details on syntax. Example: bond=bond0:eth0,eth1:mode=active-backup,primary=eth1.

Available in Fedora 19 and later
The bond option is supported since Fedora 19.

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 carry over 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.

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, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask and mtu parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

extlinux

Use extlinux as the bootloader. Note that there's no attempt to validate that this will work for your platform or anything; it assumes that if you ask for it, you want to try.

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, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask and mtu parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

geoloc

Configure geolocation usage in Anaconda. Geolocation is used to pre-set language and time zone.

The following arguemtns are supported:

• geoloc=0

Disables geolocation.

• geoloc=provider_fedora_geoip

Use the Fedora GeoIP API (default).

• geoloc=provider_hostip

Use the Hostip.info GeoIP API.

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, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask and mtu 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, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask and mtu parameters as described here does not work in Fedora 17. Instead, please use the Dracut ip= syntax.

keymap=<keymap>

Keyboard layout to use during the installation and on the installed system. 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)

ks.device

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

Renamed in Fedora 17
This parameter used to be 'ksdevice'. It was renamed in Fedora 17.

ks.sendmac

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".

Renamed in Fedora 17
This parameter used to be 'kssendmac'. It was renamed in Fedora 17.

ks.sendsn

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".

Renamed in Fedora 17
This parameter used to be 'kssendsn'. It was renamed in Fedora 17.

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 and later
The leavebootorder option was introduced in 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, critical and lock (the lock level has been added in F21 and is used for debugging YUM locking). 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, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask and mtu 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, gateway, ip, ipv6, netmask and mtu 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.

This option is never a good idea!
If you have a disk that is erroneously identified as part of a firmware RAID array, that means it has some stale RAID metadata on it which must be removed using an appropriate tool (dmraid and/or wipefs).

nofirewire

Do not load support for firewire devices.

nogpt

Do not create GPT disklabels.

noipv4

Disable IPv4 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. This is for systems on which a false-positive is encountered which erroneously identifies a normal block device as a multipath device. There is no other reason to use this option.

Not for use with actual multipath hardware!
Using this to attempt to install to a single path of a multipath is ill-advised, and not supported.

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.

noshell

Do not put a shell on tty2 during install.

Broken in Fedora 16 and later
The 'noshell' parameter is broken in Fedora releases since Fedora 16. See Bug #807703

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 (or, for some protocols, a Fedora DVD ISO image). It is analogous 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 Fedora 16, you can (optionally) add a specific .iso file to the path. If no inst.root= or inst.stage2= parameter is passed, this location will also be used as the source for the installer runtime image.

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=file:///<path>

Look for a repo at the path specified. Can be used with --image installation method to use a locally mounted DVD or repository mirror as the source.

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

Will use either an ISO image or a Fedora tree on the NFS volume with the given server and path as an install repository (in all current supported releases, 'nfs' and 'nfsiso' are synonyms; anaconda will check for either an ISO image or an install tree in the specified location whichever of the two you pass). If an 'inst.root' or 'inst.stage2' parameter is passed - as is the case by default when the installer is booted from the DVD or network install images - the mount will first be tried using the NFSv4 protocol, and if this fails, it will be tried using the NFSv3 protocol. There is a known bug in Fedora 19 Beta which prevents NFSv3 mount attempts from succeeding unless the 'nolock' option is specified. If no 'inst.root' or 'inst.stage2' parameter is passed, and so the NFS repository is being used as the installer runtime image source as well as a package source (which will be the case when booting directly from a kernel pair, for e.g., in a PXE installation, or using virt-install), the NFSv3 protocol only will be used, due to a known bug which affects trying to mount the installation root via the NFSv4 protocol.

resolution=<mode>

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

rescue

Run rescue environment.

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.

Deprecated since Fedora 19.

updates=<url>

Image containing updates over FTP or HTTP. See Anaconda/Updates for more details.

Accepts either updates=<url> or updates=<disk>:<path> where <disk> can be one of sdX, /dev/sdX, LABEL=xxx, UUID=xxx and <path> defaults to /updates.img if missing.

usefbx

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

video=<mode>

Run KMS framebuffer in video mode specified, 1152x864 for example.

virtiolog=<port_name>

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

vlan=<vlanname>:<phydevice>

Create vlan network interface. This is dracut option, see dracut documentation for details on syntax. Example: vlan=eth0.171:eth0.

Available in Fedora 19 and later
The vlan option is supported since Fedora 19.

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. Please note that the password needs to be 6 to 8 characters long (limitation of the VNC protocol).

xdriver=<driver>

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