How can I manage anaconda post install output visible on install console?

Question

While running anaconda installer in unattended mode the post install steps are run in the background and nothing is displayed on screen.

If things go wrong you are likely to not be able to see what happened if you cannot login to the machine once it does reboot.

Is there an option to "tee" the output to console to see what happens in realtime?

Answer 1

You can enable logging specifically for the %post section of your kickstart (I am assuming kickstart because you state "unattended install" via anaconda; kickstart is the most likely method that I know of.)

 %post [--erroronfail] [--interpreter /usr/bin/python] [--log LOG] [--nochroot]

There are several examples in the RHEL7 Installation Guide official documentation. Even if you aren't installing RHEL, the kickstart/anaconda system is very stable and uniform across distributions that use it. Directly from the document:

 # Start of the %post section with logging into /root/ks-post.log
 %post --log=/root/ks-post.log

 # Mount an NFS share
 mkdir /mnt/temp
 mount -o nolock 10.10.0.2:/usr/new-machines /mnt/temp
 openvt -s -w -- /mnt/temp/runme
 umount /mnt/temp

 # End of the %post section
 %end

In the same document I suggest you check section 26.3 Kickstart Syntax Reference, specifically:

• 26.3.5 Post-installation script
• 26.3.6 Kickstart error handling

The official 'kickstart' documentation is also decent but sometimes sparse, and it is hard to find. https://pykickstart.readthedocs.io/en/latest/