From owner-freebsd-config@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 1 13:08:27 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-config@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2EF9437B401 for ; Fri, 1 Aug 2003 13:08:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fed1mtao06.cox.net (fed1mtao06.cox.net [68.6.19.125]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 759F443F75 for ; Fri, 1 Aug 2003 13:08:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from matthew@syrah.us) Received: from silence.syrah.us ([68.6.25.105]) by fed1mtao06.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20030801200825.OXTT19861.fed1mtao06.cox.net@silence.syrah.us> for ; Fri, 1 Aug 2003 16:08:25 -0400 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) (uid 500) by silence.syrah.us with local; Fri, 01 Aug 2003 13:08:29 -0700 Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 13:08:29 -0700 From: Matthew To: freebsd-config@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20030801200829.GA23119@silence.syrah.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Subject: Extending sysinstall a la Kickstart X-BeenThere: freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: Matthew List-Id: Installation and Configuration List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 20:08:27 -0000 Hello, I'm a new freebsd user. I recently switched from (RedHat) Linux for various reason. Is anyone aware of a a "Kickstart" equivalent for FreeBSD? RedHat's Kickstart system allows you to automate the install process. You make a single install floppy, stick it in the floppy drive, turn on (or reboot) the computer, wait 5 to 20 minutes (depending upon the size of the install), remove the floppy, and then reboot into a freshly installed OS. (Alternatively, you can have the Kickstart process rewrite the floppy, turing it into a book disk. In this case, you don't need to remove the floppy, and Kickstart can then automatically reboot the machine when installation is complete. In this scenario, you can leave floppies sitting in remote, network accessible machines. When you want to reinstall the OS on them, you write a Kickstart image to the floppy, reboot the server, and then simply wait, all of which can be done remotely over the network.) I've done a lot of searching for Kickstart equivalents for FreeBSD, and it looks like the closest thing is /stand/sysinstall's scripting capabilities. I'm planning on extending /stand/sysinstall to increase the degree to which installation can be automated. Specficially: * Hard drive partitioning. I can press "A" both during the primary ("slice level"?) and secondary ("partition level"?) partitioning during a manual install. However, I cannot currently script secondary level "auto" partitioning. * Network configuration. I can manually configure the network interface via sysinstall. But I cannot automate this process unless: 1. I use DHCP 2. I know the name of the ethernet device I want to be able to specify, via a script, the IP address, host name, domain, netmask, etc. I also to specify, via a script, that I don't know the ethernet device name so sysinstall should just use the first ethernet device it finds. I recognize that sysinstall cannot always autodetect the ethernet device, so the script will fail in these cases. I'm pretty confident that make these extensions to sysinstall, as they are simply extensions which allow the scripts to access already extant sysinstall functionality. I'd like to make them in such a way that they can be merged into the FreeBSD project so that others have easy access to them. Are there any guidelines I should follow? I searched the handbooks for instructions and guidelines on becoming a FreeBSD developer, but didn't find anything. Perhaps I missed it? I'm planning on modifying sysinstall in 4-8-stable. It looks like sysinstall has recently moved from /usr/src/release/sysinstall to /usr/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall? Have there been other significant changes to sysinstall recently? Many thanks, Matthew. ______________________________________________________________________ matthew@syrah.us