5.10. cobbler profile

A profile associates a distribution to additional specialized options, such as a installation automation file. Profiles are the core unit of provisioning and at least one profile must exist for every distribution to be provisioned. A profile might represent, for instance, a web server or desktop configuration. In this way, profiles define a role to be performed.

$ cobbler profile add --name=string --distro=string [--autoinstall=path] [--kernel-options=string] [--autoinstall-meta=string] [--name-servers=string] [--name-servers-search=string] [--virt-file-size=gigabytes] [--virt-ram=megabytes] [--virt-type=string] [--virt-cpus=integer] [--virt-path=string] [--virt-bridge=string] [--server] [--parent=profile] [--filename=string]

Arguments are the same as listed for distributions, save for the removal of “arch” and “breed”, and with the additions listed below:

Name	Description
autoinstall	Local filesystem path to a automatic installation file, the file must reside under /var/lib/cobbler/templates
autoinstall-meta	Automatic Installation Metadata (Ex: dog=fang agent=86).
boot-files	TFTP Boot Files (Files copied into tftpboot beyond the kernel/initrd).
boot-loaders	Boot loader space delimited list (Network installation boot loaders). Valid options for list items are <<inherit>>, grub, pxe, ipxe.
comment	Simple attach a description (Free form text) to your distro.
dhcp-tag	DHCP Tag (see description in system).
distro	The name of a previously defined Cobbler distribution. This value is required.
enable-ipxe	Enable iPXE? (Use iPXE instead of PXELINUX for advanced booting options)
enable-menu	Enable PXE Menu? (Show this profile in the PXE menu?)
fetchable-files	Fetchable Files (Templates for tftp or wget/curl)
filename	This parameter can be used to select the bootloader for network boot. If specified, this must be a path relative to the TFTP servers root directory. (e.g. grub/grubx64.efi) For most use cases the default bootloader is correct and this can be omitted
menu	This is a way of organizing profiles and images in an automatically generated boot menu for grub, pxe and ipxe boot loaders. Menu created with cobbler menu add command.
name	A descriptive name. This could be something like rhel5webservers or f9desktops.
name-servers	If your nameservers are not provided by DHCP, you can specify a space separated list of addresses here to configure each of the installed nodes to use them (provided the automatic installation files used are installed on a per-system basis). Users with DHCP setups should not need to use this option. This is available to set in profiles to avoid having to set it repeatedly for each system record.
name-servers-search	You can specify a space separated list of domain names to configure each of the installed nodes to use them as domain search path. This is available to set in profiles to avoid having to set it repeatedly for each system record.
next-server	To override the Next server.
owners	Users with small sites and a limited number of admins can probably ignore this option. All objects (distros, profiles, systems, and repos) can take a –owners parameter to specify what Cobbler users can edit particular objects.This only applies to the Cobbler WebUI and XML-RPC interface, not the “cobbler” command line tool run from the shell. Furthermore, this is only respected by the authorization.ownership module which must be enabled in the settings. The value for --owners is a space separated list of users and groups as specified in /etc/cobbler/users.conf. For more information see the users.conf file as well as the Cobbler Wiki. In the default Cobbler configuration, this value is completely ignored, as is users.conf.
parent	This is an advanced feature. Profiles may inherit from other profiles in lieu of specifying --distro. Inherited profiles will override any settings specified in their parent, with the exception of --autoinstall-meta (templating) and --kernel-options (kernel options), which will be blended together. Example: If profile A has --kernel-options="x=7 y=2", B inherits from A, and B has --kernel-options="x=9 z=2", the actual kernel options that will be used for B are x=9 y=2 z=2. Example: If profile B has --virt-ram=256 and A has --virt-ram=512, profile B will use the value 256. Example: If profile A has a --virt-file-size=5 and B does not specify a size, B will use the value from A.
proxy	Proxy URL.
redhat- management-key	Management Classes (Management classes for external config management).
repos	This is a space delimited list of all the repos (created with cobbler repo add and updated with cobbler reposync)that this profile can make use of during automated installation. For example, an example might be --repos="fc6i386updates fc6i386extras" if the profile wants to access these two mirrors that are already mirrored on the Cobbler server. Repo management is described in greater depth later in the manpage.
server	This parameter should be useful only in select circumstances. If machines are on a subnet that cannot access the Cobbler server using the name/IP as configured in the Cobbler settings file, use this parameter to override that servername. See also --dhcp-tag for configuring the next server and DHCP information of the system if you are also using Cobbler to help manage your DHCP configuration.
template-files	This feature allows Cobbler to be used as a configuration management system. The argument is a space delimited string of key=value pairs. Each key is the path to a template file, each value is the path to install the file on the system. This is described in further detail on the Cobbler Wiki and is implemented using special code in the post install. Koan also can retrieve these files from a Cobbler server on demand, effectively allowing Cobbler to function as a lightweight templated configuration management system.
virt-auto-boot	(Virt-only) Virt Auto Boot (Auto boot this VM?).
virt-bridge	(Virt-only) This specifies the default bridge to use for all systems defined under this profile. If not specified, it will assume the default value in the Cobbler settings file, which as shipped in the RPM is virbr0. If not using NAT, this is most likely not correct. You may want to override this setting in the system object. Bridge settings are important as they define how outside networking will reach the guest. For more information on bridge setup, see the Cobbler Wiki, where there is a section describing Koan usage.
virt-cpus	(Virt-only) How many virtual CPUs should Koan give the virtual machine? The default is 1. This is an integer.
virt-disk-driver	(Virt-only) Virt Disk Driver Type (The on-disk format for the virtualization disk). Valid options are <<inherit>>, raw, qcow2, qed, vdi, vmdk
virt-file-size	(Virt-only) How large the disk image should be in Gigabytes. The default is 5. This can be a comma separated list (ex: 5,6,7) to allow for multiple disks of different sizes depending on what is given to --virt-path. This should be input as a integer or decimal value without units.
virt-path	(Virt-only) Where to store the virtual image on the host system. Except for advanced cases, this parameter can usually be omitted. For disk images, the value is usually an absolute path to an existing directory with an optional filename component. There is support for specifying partitions /dev/sda4 or volume groups VolGroup00, etc. For multiple disks, separate the values with commas such as VolGroup00,VolGroup00 or /dev/sda4,/dev/sda5. Both those examples would create two disks for the VM.
virt-ram	(Virt-only) How many megabytes of RAM to consume. The default is 512 MB. This should be input as an integer without units.
virt-type	(Virt-only) Koan can install images using either Xen paravirt (xenpv) or QEMU/KVM (qemu/kvm). Choose one or the other strings to specify, or values will default to attempting to find a compatible installation type on the client system(“auto”). See the “Koan” manpage for more documentation. The default --virt-type can be configured in the Cobbler settings file such that this parameter does not have to be provided. Other virtualization types are supported, for information on those options (such as VMware), see the Cobbler Wiki.