about unattended installation

Thu Dec 20 18:10:28 UTC 2012

On Dec 20, 2012, at 3:34 AM, Egoitz Aurrekoetxea Aurre wrote:

> Good morning,
> 
> 
> El 19/12/2012, a las 19:59, Devin Teske <devin.teske at fisglobal.com> escribió:
> 
>> 
>> On Dec 19, 2012, at 10:06 AM, Egoitz Aurrekoetxea Aurre wrote:
>> 
>>> Good afternoon,
>>> 
>>> One little question… I'm trying to have ready our new unattended FreeBSD installation system. Until now, I have been using Sysinstall scripting file but now with 9.1 out I think it's moment to start using BSDInstaller in the unattended installation process.
>> 
>> Hold on a moment. You might want to wait until 9.2. (read more below)
>> 
> 
> 
> Well in the ftp can be seen : 
> 
> FreeBSD-9.1-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso downloadable file…. so I assume it's a release???
> 

Of course it's a release… it just may not be the release that solves your problem w/respect to scripting bsdinstall like sysinstall. That will come in a future release (like 9.2).

> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>>> I have seen the new installer, works basically like an script…. my real question is… before I did in install.cfg something like : 
>>> 
>>> ################################
>>> disk=da0
>>> partition=all
>>> bootManager=standard
>>> diskPartitionEditor
>>> 
>>> ################################
>>> 
>>> da0s1-1=ufs 3072000 /
>>> da0s1-2=swap 8096000 none
>>> da0s1-3=ufs 20485760 /var 1
>>> da0s1-4=ufs 30720760 /usr 1
>>> da0s1-5=ufs 0 /expert 1
>>> diskLabelEditor
>>> 
>>> ################################
>>> 
>>> Now I assume there's no way of getting this same through any command like… 'bsdinstall partedit _______________________' am I wrong??.
>> 
>> You're correct. In 9.0 and 9.1, it's just not feasible to man-handle the user interface (partedit) as one could sysinstall. (read below about 9.2)
>> 
>> 
> 
> So I suppose that till the new installer is able to handle this in a similar way to sysinstall (although the syntax to be different or whatever)…. or partitioning can be achieved in some non interactive way, to maintain the possibility of rebuilding one's own release in order to be able to use sysinstall and to be able to maintain working unattended installation systems…. because this is essential for some of us….. and of course sysinstall to still continue working :)…
> 

You got it.

This is a sign to the releng team and everybody else that 10.0 should most-likely not see the light of day until bsdinstall can pass the sniff-test for those of us (like you and I) which rely on the ability to script the installation process fully.

> 
>> 
>>> So I assume all should be done by hand like this example of the Handbook : 
>>> 
>>> # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da1 bs=1k count=1
>>> # fdisk -BI da1 #Initialize your new disk
>>> # bsdlabel -B -w da1s1 auto #Label it.
>>> # bsdlabel -e da1s1 # Edit the bsdlabel just created and add any partitions.
>>> # mkdir -p /1
>>> # newfs /dev/da1s1e # Repeat this for every partition you created.
>>> # mount /dev/da1s1e /1 # Mount the partition(s)
>>> # vi /etc/fstab # Add the appropriate entry/entries to your /etc/fstab.
>>> 
>>> In the auto script….
>>> 
>>> am I wrong?.  If the answer is yes… could you point me to some documentation in order to be able to complete all this doc.
>> 
>> The answer is (unfortunately) yes… that is until (hopefully) 9.2.
>> 
>> It's an on-going significant amount of work to make add backward compatibility (so bsdinstall can load sysinstall "install.cfg" files). I'm not going to discuss the specifics here or yet, but I'm actively working on it.
>> 
>> No docs on how to mangle the auto script to do what you want (that I know of).
> 
> Ok then  :)
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Apart from all this… is Sysinstall going to be maintained in parallel?.
>>> 
>> 
>> Sysinstall is dead.
> 
> Devin, sysinstall should not be died till the new installer allows or exists a way of doing same thing than before we did in some manner or other one…..

And, you're absolutely right.

Some facts/history:

a. I'm not the one that killed it (on the contrary, like yourself, I was vehemently arguing against its death -- like you say, UNTIL whatever replacement could offer the same features).

ASIDE: You can see my arguing the same points your making now at the below link to the mailing-list archives:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-sysinstall/2011-February/000369.html

ASIDE: There's a lot of arguments for keeping sysinstall in the above-linked mailing-list, but at the end of the day, we have to realize that sysinstall was not being worked on to provide the features that the angry mob of users was demanding (GPT, ZFS, Geli, etc.) so the 15-year inertia that sysinstall enjoyed had to be ended. There will be people like yourself and me that disagree with the timeline of events that led to the demise of sysinstall in the 10.0-CURRENT line, but all I can say is that there is Ron McDowell (may he rest in peace) vehemently recognized the short-coming and dedicated our lives to filling it (and for Ron, actually the final year of his life was spent working on this project -- a truly selfless act if there ever was one).

b. It's officially dead in the 10.0-CURRENT line (read: not released yet). So you don't have anything to worry about *until* 10.0-RELEASE (whenever that is; I'm advocating within the community that -- because of this very situation with the installer -- that 10.0 not be released until late 2013 at the *minimum*, but 2014-or-later would be better for me and my timeline).

> because else… don't know... can this commands be translated to gpart for example??… and to act in a non interactive way??. But apart from the own gpart the are later other parts of the installation which should be done too… like selecting which distributions to install in a non interactive way for example….. if that is not possible to be done… in a non interactive way…. sysinstall should not disappear….
> 
> 
>> The bsdinstall you know can be considered the "first generation" and accordingly is a bit spartan. I'm working hard on the next generation. My plan is to have 10.0 with bsdinstall able to run sysinstall scripts (for backward compatibility; can't yet say what 9.x release will be MFC'd to, but that could be 9.2).
>> 
>> I'm planning one helluva BSDCan-2013 presentation.
>> -- 
>> Devin
>> 
> 
> 
> Thanks a lot for all !!
> 

No problem. You hit home with a lot of this stuff. I have the same feelings as you w/resect to sysinstall versus bsdinstall. I'm doing my best to get us across the finish line.

For now, people that prefer sysinstall can use my FreeBSD Druid pre-built install media:

For 9.0:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/druidbsd/files/FreeBSD-9.0_Druid-1.0b60.iso/download

For 8.3:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/druidbsd/files/FreeBSD-8.3_Druid-1.0b60.iso/download

As for 10.0 (when it comes out), expect bsdinstall to surpass sysinstall (in many many great ways) in every way (unlike the current status in 9.x).
-- 
Devin

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