Hello Duane
On 27 Mar 2001, at 21:58, Duane Powers wrote:
> I don't know if anyone has the details on redhat's kickstart
> program, and whether that is something that could be ported to
> debian... Any suggestions?
At the moment we do the following:
- base install (3 floppies + base.tgz from nfs drive).
- break the installation when "dselect" starts
- download a "configs.tgz" from the network. This contains
customized versions of debian "config" files in /etc as well as
other utilities in /usr/local/ and /var/www/. This configures
/etc/apt/sources etc. It also contains a file "/etc/deblist"
which was generated using "atp-get --set-selections".
- run apt --get-selections < /etc/deblist
- run apt-get --deselect-update
- manually edit /etc/... to suite the particular install.
This is flexible, when we change something on the network, we
change in the master "configs.tgz" and all subsequent installs get it.
The process is not broken when there is an upstream update -
because of debian policy for "configuration" files.
We have a script which backs up each machine and creates a
personalized "config.tgz" file. If we have to reload a machine, we
just use that one instead. (It will get upgraded to the latest "stable"
stuff during the re-install process.)
The problems:
"apt-get --deslect-upgrade" is painfully slow - particularly on slow
hardware. And you have to sit and watch and answer "y/n" stuff 'till
it is finished. (Can't wait for debconf to be working on a useful
level).
The personalisation of the config files is slow. I think we could do
with a script which runs after the config.tgz has been extracted and
asks things like domain names and user names.
I tried using a customized "base.tgz" that installed everything in one
go. But it was too inflexible and introduced too many bugs, so we
went back to the old procedure as outlined above.
Regards
Ian
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Ian Forbes ZSD
http://www.zsd.co.za
Office: +27 +21 683-1388 Fax: +27 +21 64-1106
Snail Mail: P.O. Box 46827, Glosderry, 7702, South Africa
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