Kickstart Install Failure "illegal IP address string passed to inet_aton."

The Problem

CentOS/RHEL 7.2 kickstart install fails with following error if the following option’s are used, whereas the same work’s for CentOS/RHEL 7.1 and earlier release.

network illegal IP address string passed to inet_aton.

a) Set the network parameter on the kickstart file as below. i.e without specifying static IP, gateway details:

network --bootproto static

b) Provide the “ip=” parameter on the boot command line to instructs dracut to configure the network for the installation environment and this value would be passed to the kickstart file to configure the static ip.

>inst.ks=http://[IP ADD]/kickstart.cfg ip=[IP ADD]::[gateway]:[netmask]:::none

>inst.ks=http:[IP ADD]:/[ks.cfg]ip=ip::gateway:netmask:hostname:interface:none<<

The Solution

The “ip=IP::…” format appears to be broken in the 7.2 installer. As a workaround following approach can be used:

a) Specify the complete static IP details on the kickstart file install section.

network --noipv6 --onboot=yes --bootproto static --ip=[IP ADD] --netmask=[NETMASK] --gateway=[GATEWAY] --nameserver=[DOMAINNAME] --hostname=[HOSTNAME] --device=link --activate

b) Add a pre-script in the kickstart file to set the IP details.