From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Mar 6 13:45:59 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C39E106564A; Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:45:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jpaetzel@freebsd.org) Received: from out1.smtp.messagingengine.com (out1.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 405B88FC0A; Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:45:58 +0000 (UTC) Received: from compute2.internal (compute2.internal [10.202.2.42]) by gateway1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E336E270A; Sat, 6 Mar 2010 08:30:50 -0500 (EST) Received: from heartbeat2.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.161]) by compute2.internal (MEProxy); Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:30:50 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=messagingengine.com; h=from:to:subject:date:cc:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; s=smtpout; bh=jkEQfcwheAfuA7gBdcYog6iQsV4=; b=iWIXwkUqc0gJXIvQVihDvtVy/Le85Bsq+h/9tXzMQyaw/hH4dlxj4YWhkJgtl+V+C/PPCoWCUE3/vBQ64/jj8Pcm1U6j9seuFzyMN7VAAdEPbx0geKO1WPG/HBiD93cGFSSxy8MHhpoc/7ouQn0JDWJmMxBWsWto7C7bVsmzB4o= X-Sasl-enc: h+4KDmW90gvEe4TdTTeHnM1jI0F1z4S9CDyIzLqhcJhF 1267882249 Received: from ix.tcbug.org (71-82-134-106.dhcp.roch.mn.charter.com [71.82.134.106]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id EF54132BD7; Sat, 6 Mar 2010 08:30:49 -0500 (EST) From: Josh Paetzel Organization: FreeBSD To: Garrett Cooper Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 07:28:54 -0600 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.1 (FreeBSD/9.0-CURRENT; KDE/4.4.1; amd64; ; ) References: <20100304213329.GJ57205@bunrab.catwhisker.org> <201003051233.42861.jpaetzel@freebsd.org> <7d6fde3d1003060041p225e8718n29a8e75a718237a@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <7d6fde3d1003060041p225e8718n29a8e75a718237a@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart2193251.VScSK8vn8x"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201003060729.01225.jpaetzel@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, randi@freebsd.org, David Wolfskill Subject: Re: Scripting sysinstall(8) to create & use multiple slices on a disk? X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:45:59 -0000 --nextPart2193251.VScSK8vn8x Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Saturday 06 March 2010 02:41:30 Garrett Cooper wrote: > (Attempts to avoid shoe flying in his direction from randi@ :/), >=20 > FWIW, sysinstall(8) is a good starter tool and it has a lot of the > information that you need in order to complete an install (especially > if you're doing it from scratch), but the amount of effort for using > sysinstall(8)'s install.cfg, etc has the greater potential to change > in the future when compared with a shell scripted method which is less > likely to change; granted gpart vs fdisk is in transition, but the > number of steps and the simplicity required to get everything up and > going is trivial, and I did so in < 100 lines of bourne shell. >=20 > I'd be happy to share my custom script if desired as well to provide > you a general idea of what could be done to solve your problem. >=20 > Cheers, > -Garrett One of my main issues with using sysinstall comes from an intersection of i= t's=20 lack of documentation, and the way it can arbitrarily change over time. Fo= r=20 instance, this week I was working on an install for a number of machines th= at=20 had to be imaged with an early 7.x version of FreeBSD, and were specified t= o=20 be installed with "distSet${OBFUSICATED}" In order to determine what=20 distSet${OBFUSICATED} installs on 7.${EARLY} involves either installing a=20 system via sysinstall and noting what it installs, or reading the source co= de. =20 Where this becomes an issue is sysinstall changes over time,=20 distSet${OBFUSICATED} is not necessarily the same between 7.${EARLY} and sa= y=20 8.0. Since there is no documentation you either end up tracking the change= s=20 to sysinstall, or sorting it out at upgrade time. I'd also like to mention John saying you can build a custom mfsroot to use= =20 additional tools during install...I go a different tack on this. I'm a hug= e=20 fan of python, and like to use it for installers. Rather than build a cust= om=20 mfsroot with python what I prefer to do is build a chroot that the target=20 machine boots diskless off. Then I chroot into that directory and install= =20 whatever tools I want using ports/packages. I find that getting FreeBSD to= =20 boot diskless is so easy that I've had it accidentally happen more than onc= e=20 when I wanted something else to happen. Installing ports in a chroot is al= so=20 pretty trivial. Building a custom mfsroot has a bit of a learning curve wi= th=20 a fairly expensive trial and error penalty. At any rate. There are a lot of compelling reasons to not use sysinstall f= or=20 automated installs. And while there are compelling reasons to use sysinsta= ll=20 for this task, most of them involve things like "I'm a masochist." or "It w= as=20 there so I thought I'd use it." =2D-=20 Thanks, Josh Paetzel =46reeBSD -- The power to serve --nextPart2193251.VScSK8vn8x Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD) iQEcBAABAgAGBQJLklidAAoJEKFq1/n1feG2G/gIAJ0DOoOu7xxwLYOYGQfXq3y/ NL01+e25hHayFOUZGyNmE7SJjvIurU7z7fQQ5KliEWzZf0p0h7rW70bpIjLz/T+O OXpYR1kVzq0V7Wn5fTP+btKJzZWM0KKV9mFLBlWWWfxrJuatCQKCby4IGEA9jQ24 fcZdBN3etoVA3zb2YGsPTzjW+VnUqvpMO/MKysybLTMu0tTiXb4L/23OJVRs9zbf 3zUNhgxhCN9U+Y9S8M0cEuXkUVFw/SpcZHbXQkgXlWxxqRrE2xlSvi4n4pYCH6ls 9FWF+pZ++d3irosE0+vvNl/1V2WHMzJlIRhMU/mt4nu1BxwVafDP5XqxApMQyew= =U7ys -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart2193251.VScSK8vn8x--