From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 16:19:56 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B935B106566C; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:19:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C1508FC12; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:19:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (66.111.2.69.static.nyinternet.net [66.111.2.69]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 279AA46B03; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:19:56 -0500 (EST) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (unknown [209.249.190.10]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 552718A009; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:19:55 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:45:45 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/7.4-CBSD-20110107; KDE/4.4.5; amd64; ; ) References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201102220745.45695.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:19:55 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.3 at bigwig.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.1 required=4.2 tests=BAYES_00,DATE_IN_PAST_03_06, MAY_BE_FORGED,RDNS_DYNAMIC autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Level: ** X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on bigwig.baldwin.cx Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, grarpamp , freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:19:56 -0000 On Saturday, February 19, 2011 4:34:11 am grarpamp wrote: > Sysinstall is fine, as I'm sure any replacement will be. So I'll > just note a few things I'd like to see in any such replacement... > > 1 - I used install.cfg's on floppies to clone systems, a lot. Hands > on the box were needed with that. Operators skills were in question, > so having them use the dialog menus properly was a pain and often > resulted in non-zeroed disk or half built systems. And though all > else was cloned, it needed a separate .cfg for each box due > to: > > fqdn, gateway, ip/mask > interface - sometimes changed > root disk - sometimes changed > > Would have killed for a simple console shell script to ask those > questions of the operator, per machine. Actually, you can do that if you are a bit creative (add a few more tools to the mfsroot, and use the 'system' command in install.cfg to invoke a shell script that then generates a foo.cfg you later include via loadConfig, but I've covered that at multiple conferences by now). That said, I'm hopeful that the new installer will be more flexible in less hackish ways while letting you do things like PXE boot to a shell where you can use mfiutil to create a RAID-5 volume and then invoke the installer on that, etc. -- John Baldwin