On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 09:45:17AM +1030, Andrew McDonnell wrote: > Package: debian-installer > Version: 20190702+deb10u8 > Severity: important > Tags: d-i > > In a preseed file I accidentally had a space before a comment character, which > caused my preseed to fail in unexpected ways. I could not find anythying that > stood out in the documentation (e.g. > https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/amd64/apbs04.en.html or > https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/apbs03.en.html) stating that this > would occur. > > The specific example in my case looked like this: > > #_preseed_V1 > d-i debian-installer/locale string en_AU > d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select us > d-i keymap select us > ... etc ... > # Example of fetching a script to run > #d-i preseed/run string http://10.1.2.3/my-script.sh > > > My install was hanging and when I entered a console and looked in the syslog, > it was attempting to access that script for which the IP address does not > exist > on my network. I finally started to understand the problem when I did this, > the > latter finally triggered a parse error in the installer console: > > #d-iWHATpreseed/run string http://10.1.2.3/my-script.sh > > > #d-iWHATpreseed/runISstringHAPPENINGhttp://10.1.2.3/my-script.sh > > at this point I saw the white space, removed it and the problem went away. > > (I am also unsure whether "d-iWHAT" is also a bug or just some default > applying > if the item owner is not found) > > So I guess that either > - whitespace is disallowed before a comment character and this should be added > to https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/apbs03.en.html - it mentioned > whitespace between fields but not at the start of a line > - this is a bug
Well none of the examples ever have spaces before # for comments. The documentation page you linked to doesn't even mention comments at all. I would agree that perhaps it should. I have certainly encountered file types before where comments had to have # at the start of the line. -- Len Sorensen
