From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 4 03:39:17 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 36E3E1065735; Wed, 4 Jan 2012 03:39:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from yanegomi@gmail.com) Received: from mail-tul01m020-f182.google.com (mail-tul01m020-f182.google.com [209.85.214.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DF4CB8FC14; Wed, 4 Jan 2012 03:39:16 +0000 (UTC) Received: by obbwd18 with SMTP id wd18so19662403obb.13 for ; Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:39:16 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=E7pgaVkh/ixkEAB38bMcOa2sGQf9HBC2VUUFenXtawE=; b=sEeJMpPh26pmgeK+no5NpGNXiTbszfc9uBN1LzoK7CRKaYJcziURx6ZWw2FLu8dNZ0 q8SziMR4C/ENV8zrzRyXsLDz3VAXV4W4is1sXiftavAigqtoiiAgAvk+qj3LH3b8K6Ww +85Y7tixABifJYbs1190alfn0DK8TgusRWSjw= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.182.164.106 with SMTP id yp10mr4058944obb.71.1325646561903; Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:09:21 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.182.152.6 with HTTP; Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:09:21 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: <4F03AF24.70102@freebsd.org> <4F03BE93.9040708@fuzzwad.org> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:09:21 -0800 Message-ID: From: Garrett Cooper To: Eitan Adler Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: Lawrence Stewart , freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, Marcel Moolenaar Subject: Re: sysinstall as a post-install tool X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:39:17 -0000 On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 6:57 PM, Eitan Adler wrote: > On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Ron McDowell wrote: >> I [Ron] just added myself to the sysinstall list. > > Good >> >> What I envision is a text based system administration suite that will >> [hopefully] do everything that the "Configure" option on the top level o= f >> the sysinstall menu does. =A0I see it as being part of the base OS, such= that >> once one has rebooted from HD after the install and logged in as root [o= r >> user+su], a menu can be brought up by entering "sysadmin" or such. =A0Do= es >> "sysadmin" work for a name? =A0I kinda like it. > > Do you plan on this tool being run "late in the game" after the system > has been used for a while or this is a "welcome new user" only tool? > >> I plan on basically going through the sysinstall post-configuration menu= : > > [snip configure menu] > > Do you plan on making this a C based program or a shell script? > >> and as close as reasonable, stick to the same task flow. =A0I plan on wr= iting >> it against 10-current and look at back-porting to 9 after it's somewhat >> stable. > > I'd like to work with you on this, especially w.r.t to ensuring that > it meets the requirements for entering the base system. > >> One new, important, and not-so-difficult task will be: on exiting, check= the >> sanity of /etc/rc.conf and complain if needed, but allow the user to >> override the safety-switch if foot-shooting is really requested. =A0:) = =A0I'm a >> firm believer of not disallowing anything. > > Good on both counts. Please note that there's already existing infrastructure in FreeBSD that partitions UFS and ZFS: pc-sysinstall. This doesn't need to be [re]written... It needs polishing, maybe some work with non-Intel architectures, some documentation, and integration into a complete tool (and I will be the first to help out with this because I have the ear of several members who help maintain pc-sysinstall). In this case, all that really needs to be done is guide things with an ncurses frontend. That can be written in Unix shell with dialog to avoid bitrot that occurred with sysinstall when the underlying partitioning tools and defacto method of doing things in C dramatically changed (libdisk -> libgeom). It already works reasonably well for PC-BSD and is used by other projects such as FreeNAS. Thanks, -Garrett