Re: Unattended OpenBSD Installation

Previous thread: 4.8 sensorsd blind spot, failure to trigger command on any state changes after initialisation by mark hellewell on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 7:03 pm. (3 messages)

Next thread: [ACPI] ASUS AT3GC-I by Benjamin GUILLER on Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 2:16 am. (1 message)
From: OpenBSD Geek
Date: Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 11:43 pm

Hi,

I read FAQ, and found nothing about "install.site" script.
And tried : man install.site, give me nothing.

Is there someone that can explain me how to do a unattended installation ?
I wish for example have this by default :
- Keyboard "fr".
- myname : "puffy"
- DomainName : "secure.lan"
- IPv4 : 10.10.10.1/24
- mygate : 10.10.10.10/24
- IPv6 : none
- Root password : "betatest"
- Create a user : "debug" member of "wheel"
- use the whole disk and auto layout
- Install all sets except -x* and -g*

Thank you a lot.

All the best,

Wesley.

From: Jacob Meuser
Date: Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 12:50 am

the you must have missed section 4.14 ->

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#site

-- 
jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

From: Stuart Henderson
Date: Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 3:32 am

you can do these parts by overwriting/adding to the configuration
files, see faq 4. you can also do things like adding lines to

this is beyond the scope of install.site/siteXX.tgz, these files
are for additional steps after the main installation is complete,
not a complete unattended installation.

From: OpenBSD Geek
Date: Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 10:10 am

Hi,
I read OpenBSD FAQ at
[url]http://www.openbsd.org/faq/fr/faq4.html#site[/url]
I understood well, that install.site/ Upgrade.site and of course
SiteXX.tgz is enabled at the end of the installation.

My question, i boot on 4.7 RELEASE, choose "Install".
Is it possible to have an "true automatic installation" for example don't
need to put mygate, myname, "root password" ... put all the answers in a
script ? And so have an install without any interaction with the user ?

I suppose not possible ? because all of that are in the "install.sub"
script (from bsd.rd)

Thanks.

On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 10:32:21 +0000 (UTC), Stuart Henderson

From: Nick Bender
Date: Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 11:31 am

You could have a look at http://nbender.com/install.netboot/install.html which
is no longer current and was brittle and difficult to use.

I am currently working on  the next version which is much better - it meets
all your requirements. I'm calling it redux and I'm including the readme below.

What's left to do is additional testing, documentation, and updating for any
changes in 4.8 (it is working now against 4.7).

-N

========================================================

Welcome to redux, an OpenBSD automated installation framework.

redux enhances the standard OpenBSD installation procedure by
enabling the following functionality:

1. Record all choices made during an installation.
2. Enable an automated installation using recorded choices.
3. Allow interactive revision of a previously recorded
   installation session.
4. Provide support for network based fully automated
   installation using only tools provided by OpenBSD.

redux is ditributed as a Makefile, a set of patches to the
standard installation scripts and a small number of additional
installation scripts. Building the entire source tree is not
required as redux uses an existing ditribution as the starting
point. By default it assumes that the OpenBSD source tree is
loaded in /usr/src and that the installation CD is mounted on
/mnt (see the top of the makefile to adjust these locations).
The output of the make process is a modified installation
ramdisk which can be booted using pxeboot. The ramdisk could
also be used to construct a boot CD which will be supported
in a future release.

An effort has been made to minimize the changes to the default
scripts to minimize ongoing maintenance as the base system
evolves. A patch to the standard pxeboot program is also
provided which enables additional network boot functionality
for the i386 and amd64 architectures. redux has been tested on
the i386 and amd64 architectures but should be usable on other
architectures.

From: OpenBSD Geek
Date: Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 12:04 pm

How can i test your 'redux' ?
I found that : http://www.hiqu.biz/
thanks for your replies

Cheers,

Wesley MOUEDINE ASSABY
www.mouedine.net



From: Toni Mueller
Date: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - 5:22 am

Hi Nick,



I have a use case, so if you want me to test something... ;)


Kind regards,
--Toni++

From: Nick Holland
Date: Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 11:53 am

did you actually read Stuart's response?

And of course, it's an open source system, as the interactive script can
install the system, it's obviously possible to write your own script to
do it automatically.  Not overly difficult, even.  Rough outline of one
way to do it:

Build a USB disk with a minimal OpenBSD install and all the desired
install files on it.
Write a script that runs on the USB disk and does the following:
* fdisk -iy desired disk
* disklabels, creating desired partitions
* newfs's the desired partitions
* mount them under (say) /mnt
* copy over kernels
* unpack desired *.tgz files
* install boot loader (faq14.html)
* copy over/create desired network config files
* copy over package files you want
* create an rc.firsttime file to install those packages on first native
boot.

Probably as easy to create your own script to do that as it is to learn,
configure and use someone else's "automatic install" script that makes
assumptions that don't quite match yours.

OpenBSD is really simple, no magic takes place in the install process
that you can't easily replicate.  The magic is making it work off one
floppy disk on any platform that takes floppies.


Previous thread: 4.8 sensorsd blind spot, failure to trigger command on any state changes after initialisation by mark hellewell on Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 7:03 pm. (3 messages)

Next thread: [ACPI] ASUS AT3GC-I by Benjamin GUILLER on Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 2:16 am. (1 message)