hands off install

[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2005 at 10:55:37AM -0600, Carl Karsten wrote:
> forgot to hit "reply all", but good because I need to correct my post. 
> so Colin - please see the added text.

Including my private reply for the benefit of the list.

> Colin Watson wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 21, 2005 at 08:52:25AM -0600, Carl Karsten wrote:
> >> New data: picking a nic is a critical question, so it stops at this
> >> step.
> >>
> >> So currently, a box with 2 nics can not be done "hands off."
> >
> > My Kickstart test machine has two network cards, so I don't believe
> > that's true. Preseeding netcfg/choose_interface to eth1 (or whatever)
> > should do the job; in the netboot case, you'll have to do this on the
> > kernel command line (netcfg/choose_interface=eth1).
> 
> I am focusing on netboot, so preseed doesn't apply.

I don't understand this statement. Why not?

> I think it would make testing easier if the netboot supported a floppy
> preseed, otherwise I have to burn a CD.

netboot supports preseed/url, i.e. network preseeding; this is
documented here:

  http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hoary/main/installer-i386/current/doc/manual/en/apcs01.html

You don't have to burn a CD.

(netcfg/choose_interface is read before the network preseed file,
though, for obvious reasons, so it still needs to go on the kernel
command line.)

> This should be noted on 
> http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hoary/main/installer-i386/current/doc/manual/en/ch05s02.html#installer-args

I disagree, since it's not a top-level argument in the same sense as
everything else there; the language/country preseed arguments aren't
documented there either. That section would get unreadably long if every
possible debconf question were documented there.

It should be documented a little more clearly in
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hoary/main/installer-i386/current/doc/manual/en/apcs01.html,
though (and the language/country configuration there should be updated
to be just "preseed/locale=en_US"). Fixed in my local tree, so no need
to file a bug.

> My kernel parameter append line is now too long (the limit appears to be 
> 255 chars.

That, and you can only use a maximum of 32 command line options and 32
environment options. (This was lifted from 8 in earlier kernel versions.
I've just changed the manual to mention the newer raised limit.)

>         append debconf/priority=critical 
> languagechooser/language-name=English countrychooser/shortlist=US 
> kbd-chooser/method=us initrd=ubuntu-installer/i386/initrd.gz 
> ramdisk_size=12890 root=/dev/rd/0 rw -- 
> preseed/url=http://192.168.1.22/preseed.cfg netcfg/choose_interface=eth1 
> BOOT_DEBUG=3

Try replacing "languagechooser/language-name=English
countrychooser/shortlist=US" with "preseed/locale=en_US".

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]