Linux distributions are getting larger and larger; CentOS 6.0 64-bit won’t fit on a single DVD anymore. A Cobbler-based provisioning server will normally import only one DVD. So, how do you get around this?

  1. Import the first DVD as usual
  2. Manually add content from the second DVD

Import the first DVD (ISO image):

  mkdir /mnt/dvd1; mount -o ro,loop /tmp/CentOS-6.0-x86_64-bin-DVD1.iso /mnt/dvd1

  DISTRO=centos60-x86_64
  cobbler import --name=${DISTRO} --path=/mnt/dvd1

Watch the output from Cobbler closely – it will basically tell show you the commands you need to import the second DVD ;-)

Import the second DVD (ISO image):

  mkdir /mnt/dvd2; mount -o ro,loop /tmp/CentOS-6.0-x86_64-bin-DVD2.iso /mnt/dvd2

  rsync -a  '/mnt/dvd2/' /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/${DISTRO} --exclude-from=/etc/cobbler/rsync.exclude --progress
  COMPSXML=$(ls /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/${DISTRO}/repodata/*comps*.xml)
  createrepo -c cache -s sha --update --groupfile ${COMPSXML} /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/${DISTRO}

Done! You have now added the contents of the second DVD to your existing “ks_mirror” directory and updated the Yum repodata.

Update 2011.08

  • FIXED: Forgot the trailing / on the DVD2 mount point ‘/mnt/dvd2/’. Otherwise, the rsync command will create a ‘dvd2’ subdirectory.

Updated: