Re: mass-installing Debian
>
> Illo de' Illis wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, May 19, 1999 at 09:12:29AM -0700, Dean Carpenter wrote:
> > > Now during installation, the exim preinst and postinst scripts would
> > > source the install-response file, creating the variables with the
> > > responses they need. At this point, it's just as if they've asked the
> > > questions and retrieved the user responses. If a particular response
> > > variable doesn't exist in the install-response file, the script can
> > > still prompt just like normal, though this ruins the effect.
> >
> > Hmm... and, if we run dselect, dpkg, apt-get or whatever it is without any
> > system-wide configuration script, it could generate a skeleton file with the
> > user's answers logged. This way we should be able to carefully configure the
> > first machine, cut away the variable configuration fields from the generated
> > configuration script, and feed the rest of the machines with it.
>
> Or better yet, modify the variable parameters for each system, and get
> complete auto installs. :) I'd use this allot to generate "identical"
> systems that vary only in name and IP.
>
> I like the idea of a system install prompt answer file. If parameters
> that are common to many packages get common names that all packages
> could share, this could even work better. It would also be nice to
> allow some conditional parsing, possibly on the level of a simple C
> preprocessor, but that isn't needed for the initial versions.
>
> One of the main reasons I would like to have this ability is for
> rebuilds of a system. If you save the configuration file off to
> floppy, then you can rebuild the system quickly to the same state
> of your initial load.
>
> A possible format for variables would be:
>
> <package>__<variable_name>: "<value>"
>
> For a line that would look like:
>
> Apache_SSL__webmaster: "bryan@visi.com"
>
> Notes: Convert "-" in package names to "_". The "__" (double
> underscore) is for separating package name and variable name parts.
> If package name isn't needed as in the definition of a globally
> used value, then the "__" isn't used, and just the variable name
> is used. Use quoting that is compatible with bash.
>
> If a common set of bash shell functions and C functions are
> created, then programs could easily open and read the
> configuration in. Then when they want to prompt for a value,
> the call the prompt function which looks up to see if it's
> already set. It then uses that value, or it prompts. I see
> three main functions, load, prompt, and save. Load reads in
> set of values. Prompt searches for a value in the loaded set,
> if not found it prompts for the value. Save dumps the set of
> vales out to a file if anything changed.
>
> If in the above example there wasn't a definition for
> "Apache_SSL__webmaster", but there is a definition for
> "webmaster", then a call by the Apache-SSL configuration
> script would retrieve the value set for "webmaster".
>
> There is a potential problem with package upgrades invalidating
> values sets. For this I propose that when the file is generated,
> the package sets a variable with
>
> <package>__Version: "<package_version>".
>
> For a line that would look like:
>
> Apache_SSL__Version: "1.3.6"
>
> When a package reads in the settings, it can check the version
> tag to check for value set compatibility.
>
> I'd volunteer time to work on this, but I'm embroiled in finding
> a way to compress the Tiger map data onto one CD.
>
> --
> | Bryan Andersen | bryan@visi.com | http://softail.visi.com |
> | Buzzwords are like annoying little flies that deserve to be swatted. |
> | -Bryan Andersen |
>
>
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>
I'm working on an automatic installation tool. It as almost working.
I will post more information in the following days. The basic idea
is to record automatically all the answers given during the first
installation and retrieve them from a db when installing identical
machines.
--
Massimo Dal Zotto
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