Re: Anyone working on an automated install?

[Aleksej Saushev <asau%inbox.ru@localhost>]

David Young <dyoung%pobox.com@localhost> writes:

> On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 10:17:29AM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote:
>> 
>> Aleksej Saushev <asau%inbox.ru@localhost> writes:
>> 
>> > Josh Branning <lovell.joshyyy%gmail.com@localhost> writes:
>> >
>> >> I am aware this has been asked several times already, but it really
>> >> would be nice to have some way of automating the installation for NetBSD.
>> >>
>> >> If anyone is working on this, please let me know.
>> >
>> > NetBSD installation process is straightforward, it is trivial to script it.
>> 
>> If you mean with expect, it's not, if you have a lot of machines and
>> don't have consoles wired up.  If you mean that it shouldn't take much
>> coding time to make sysinst take a control file, I agree.
>
> Aleksej may have meant that to write a script that sets up a disk using
> fdisk(8), disklabel(8), makefs(8), extracts sets with pax(1), runs
> etcupdate(8) to complete some essential installation steps, modifies
> some configuration files (e.g, sets rc_configured=YES in /etc/rc.conf)
> and runs installboot(8) to configure the bootloader, is trivial.
>
> I wouldn't call it trivial, but it's definitely possible.

In my experience, writing such a script is not more complex than using
some automation tool. I have to admit though that our tools could be
friendlier to scripting users, and this could reduce complexity
significantly, indeed. Still installation automation is not that trivial,
unless you use full disk and single partition (or just two of them).
I'd like to get support for this special case, and I have grown a hack
in my tree already, but I don't have time and resources to get it
read for production.


-- 
HE CE3OH...