Why
I maintain SLED 10 SP1 based systems that need to install via autoyast (ie network install). This does not support newer intel nic cards (which are a big win because they were previously broadcom, but I pushed back and got intel cards). The process is not very obvious, and probably not for the faint of heart. The following process is used to make an ‘initrd’ file that you can write over the previous initrd file on the iso, and burn that so your iso will have network support.

Install CD Process

1: Extract initrd from SLED SP1 install media to working directory

cp /media/sled/boot/i386/loader/initrd /home/sharms/working_directory

2: Make a directory to work with contents

mkdir /home/sharms/working_directory/work

3: Extract initrd contents

cd /home/sharms/working_directory/work
gzip -dc < ../initrd | cpio -idmuv

: Retrieve driver file from forge ftp

cd /home/sharms/working_directory
wget http://forgeftp.novell.com/driver-process/staging/pub/update/Intel/sle10sp1/common/i586/intel-e1000-kmp-default-7.6.5_2.6.16.46_0.12-27.i586.rpm

5: Extract module from rpm

mkdir rpm_contents
cd rpm_contents
rpm2cpio ../intel-e1000-kmp-default-7.6.5_2.6.16.46_0.12-27.i586.rpm | cpio -idv

6: Add module to initrd

cp default/lib/modules/2.6.16.46-0.12-default/updates/e1000.ko /home/sharms/working_directory/work/modules

7: Update module files (this will vary greatly depending on drivers) but
the two files to be modified are:
/home/sharms/working_directory/work/lib/modules/2.6.16.46-0.12-default/modules.alias
/home/sharms/working_directory/work/lib/modules/2.6.16.46-0.12-default/modules.pcimap

I generated mine like this:

depmod -b /tmp -n /tmp/workingdir/work/modules/e1000.ko

8: Recreate initrd

cd /home/sharms/working_directory/work/
find . | cpio --quiet -o -H newc > ../initrd
cd ..
gzip -v9c initrd > initrd.gz
mv initrd.gz initrd

Creating a new SLES / SLED iso

mount -t iso9660 -o loop /tmp/SLES-10-sp2-x86.iso /tmp/sles
mkdir /tmp/remastered-sles
rsync -avh /tmp/sles /tmp/remastered-sles
cp /tmp/workdir/initrd /tmp/remastered-sles/boot/i386/loader
mkisofs -v -r -J -o /tmp/sles10sp2-e1000.iso -b boot/i386/loader/isolinux.bin -T -pad -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -c boot.cat -boot-info-table .

Addon media process
This is needed because this prior process only covers the install cd, not the files actually installed.
This can be followed from:
http://opseast.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/autoyast-how-and-why-you-may-need-to-update-your-sle-installation-environment-source/

Important to note: when making the addon package, you will want to
include both -default and -smp versions of the module rpm so that way
both types of processors are covered.

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