sysinstall as a post-install tool

[Devin Teske]

On Jan 3, 2012, at 7:12 PM, Ron McDowell wrote:

> Eitan Adler wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Ron McDowell <rcm at fuzzwad.org> wrote:
>>  
>>> I [Ron] just added myself to the sysinstall list.
>>>    
>> 
>> Good
>>  
>>> What I envision is a text based system administration suite that will
>>> [hopefully] do everything that the "Configure" option on the top level of
>>> the sysinstall menu does.  I see it as being part of the base OS, such that
>>> once one has rebooted from HD after the install and logged in as root [or
>>> user+su], a menu can be brought up by entering "sysadmin" or such.  Does
>>> "sysadmin" work for a name?  I kinda like it.
>>>    
>> 
>> Do you plan on this tool being run "late in the game" after the system
>> has been used for a while or this is a "welcome new user" only tool?
>>  
> 
> I want it to be both.  Similar in concept to scoadmin on SCO, sysadm on SVR4, smit on AIX if you're familiar with any of them.
> 

Same exact ideas host-setup was built on.

We actually have a customized installer that set's the root-user's login shell to this (perfectly safe for you to try, by the way -- it resets to csh on Ctrl-C or Exit).

But I use it almost on a daily basis to change settings as it saves me so much time (we made it very smart -- when it asks you "Would you like to bring [interface] up" and you say "Yes" ... it actually does it ... unlike sysinstall(8), lol).


>>> I plan on basically going through the sysinstall post-configuration menu:
>>>    
>> 
>> [snip configure menu]
>>  
> 
> [apologies for the way that menu came out..."worked fine on my email!" :) ]
> 
>> Do you plan on making this a C based program or a shell script?
>>  
> 
> /bin/sh and hopefully use the dialog library like sysinstall, if it can be made to do what needs doing.

If you have a look at host-setup, you'll see we fully support three versions of $DIALOG ...

dialog(1) from FreeBSD-8.x and earlier
dialog(1) from FreeBSD-9.x and higher (which is now "cdialog" as imported by NWhitehorn)
Xdialog(1) available from ports (x11/xdialog)

It can also be configured as a menu-item in your window manager (exec host-setup -sX) or even display manager running as root (similarly, exec host-setup -sX). HINT: it [safely] prompts for sudo(8) credentials using Xdialog(1)'s --password box


> 
>>> and as close as reasonable, stick to the same task flow.  I plan on writing
>>> it against 10-current and look at back-porting to 9 after it's somewhat
>>> stable.
>>>    
>> 
>> I'd like to work with you on this, especially w.r.t to ensuring that
>> it meets the requirements for entering the base system.
>>  
> 
> Great!  Give me a few days to get the box up and poke around with the dialog stuff, and I'll ping you then.
> 

Can you try host-setup on your new box?

http://druidbsd.sourceforge.net/download/host-setup.txt

-- 
Devin

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