Re: Anyone working on an automated install?

[Josh Branning <lovell.joshyyy%gmail.com@localhost>]

On 23/10/12 22:15, Aleksej Saushev wrote:
> 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.
> 
> 
That's a shame, if I were better at coding I'd help out. Most other
unix-like distributions have some method of automating their installer,
it'd be great to see NetBSD have the same. It's the only downfall I can
see for this otherwise great OS.

Josh.