Re: [suse-autoinstall] How to keep a pre-install script partition scheme?

17 Jun 2004

      Hi Anas,

Thank you for replying so quickly.

Unfortunately I was expecting your answer. my most recent attempt was to
force a reboot of the computer (system call) when my script partitions the
disk so that (I hoped) the computer would then net boot a second time, a
valid partition table would exist and things would be OK.
Unfortunately that does not work as a valid partition table (without a
bootable flag) is still viewed as bootable by the PC - darn.

I will now try the rules based install - thanks for the suggestion.

I hope you will document that the pre-install script is not a true
pre-install script as insatllation decisions have already been made by
autoyast about the installation it will perform before the pre-install
script has beene executed.
Interestingly Redhat kickstart does allow one to mess around with the
partition table in a pre-install script.

OK, I've now tried the rules based install and I cannot get it to work:

The control file:

default linux
label linux
  kernel linux
  append load_ramdisk=1 initrd=initrd
autoyast=nfs://172.24.25.29/install/suse9.1/autoyast/ install=nfs://1
72.24.25.29/install/suse9.1/Suse/ textmode=1

The rules directory as specified by
http://www.suse.de/~nashif/autoinstall/9.1/html/rulesandclass.html
:

-bash-2.05b# pwd
/install/suse9.1/autoyast/rules
-bash-2.05b# ls -l
total 24
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 6605 Jun 17 15:48 ay_create_partitions.xml
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1690 Jun 17 15:32 ay_make_part
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 5801 Jun 17 15:29 ay_partitioned.xml
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  776 Jun 17 15:42 rules.xml

The rules file is being read by something (ls -lu tells me) when the
install is attempted, but I am told that no valid control file is found.

Maybe my rules.xml is at fault:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE autoinstall SYSTEM "/usr/share/autoinstall/dtd/rules.dtd">
<autoinstall xmlns="http://www.suse.com/1.0/yast2ns"
xmlns:config="http://www.suse.com/1.0/configns">
  <rules config:type="list">
    <rule>
       <linux>
            <match>0</match>
            greater
       </linux>
       <result>
            <profile>ay_partitioned.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">false</continue>
        </result>
       <linux>
            <match>0</match>
            exact
       </linux>
       <result>
            <profile>ay_create_partitions.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">false</continue>
        </result>
    </rule>
  </rules>
</autoinstall>

The HDD on the destination computer does have a valid partition table so
the first rule should be picked up whereby there are more than 0 linux
partitions, I think.

I've taken a guess at the match type for the other situation where no
partitions are defined "exact" although I cannot see a complete list of
defined match types in the documentation (unfortunately), but this should
not matter as I want it to pick up the other one anyway.

cheers,

Mike Rose

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004, Anas Nashif wrote:
...
Hi,
You cant combine sfdisk with autoyast partitioning or at least it is
very difficultand to accomplish  what you want. If you are using a
recent release, you can use rules to detect the type of the harddisk you
are using and have different partitioning schemes for the various disks
depending on the size of the disks.