February 2005 - openSUSE Autoinstall - openSUSE Mailing Lists

How Do I preserve lvm1?
by Brian Childs 01 Feb '05

01 Feb '05

I'm trying to install SuSE 9.2 using autoyast. I have a a cluster of SuSE 8.1 systems that were installed with a different installer. They each have one filesystem in an lvm1 logical volume that I really want to preserve. If push comes to shove, I can restore the data, but it would make my upgrade very time consuming. No matter what tags I set in the control file, my pv's,vg's,and lv's are erased and then re-created. Is there a way to prevent this? Brian

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SLES8 autoyast with http repository
by Daniel Fitzner 01 Feb '05

01 Feb '05

Hello guys, I am trying to setup a autoyast environment for sles8 with a http repository. According to http://www.suse.de/~nashif/autoinstall/multiplesource.html I setup the repository. I created a bootable CD mit an info file, thats looks: install: http://<INSTALLSRVIP>/SuSE/SLES8/ netdevice: eth0 hostip: <CLIENTIP> gateway: <CLIENTGATEWAY> nameserver: <DNS> netmask: 255.255.255.0 textmode: 1 forceinsmod: 1 nopcmcia: 1 and a working xml -file. If I boot with the cd at first everything works fine, the clients gets all information needed, like network configuration, partitioning infos from xml-file and so on. But if the yast wants to start the installation it cannot find any package. I checked the logs of the http-server and saw that yast searches the packages at the wrong directory. Do you have any ideas, why??? ______________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://f.web.de/?mc=021193

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Separate dirs for original and own packages?
by Ole Streicher 01 Feb '05

01 Feb '05

Dear group, I would like to use the original version of a SuSE mounted read-only, but I have some additional packages that should also be installed. Is it possible to have a separate installation directory for own packages when using autoyast? The documentation only states that it is no possible to hold everything in one place, which leads to the assumption that the opposite is (was?) also possible. BTW, I didn't get any reply to my last question about the sysconfig variable mystery. Is it really a bug or something trivial I have misunderstood? Best regards Ole -- Sparen beginnt mit GMX DSL: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl

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RE: [suse-autoinstall] Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP)
by Nick Forbes 01 Feb '05

01 Feb '05

Hi Charles, Thanks for swift responses. I think I am struggling to explain this well. I am talking about the actual directory *during* install. It is nothing to do with the real disk in terms of the partitions required - I have this working. Bascialy I am trying to split the RPM's out of the install source. The "root" filesystem I am talking about is the 60MB cramfs file in the /boot/ directory of the installation media. It is this I would like to load of CD while fetching the RPM's from an HTTP server? As you say this is loaded by initrd/linuxrc which also sets up the install configuration in /etc/install.inf which is passed to YaST after the cramfs root has been loaded. What I am after is a way to load the cramfs root from CD but pass the correct information to YaST so that it fetches the RPM's from a web server. So I guess this is really a question out the way initrd/linuxrc load YaST ;-) Thanks for your help, Nick. -----Original Message----- From: Suffin, Charles [mailto:Charles.Suffin@stratus.com] Posted At: 01 February 2005 11:38 Posted To: Nick-Forbes.SPAM Conversation: [suse-autoinstall] Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP) Subject: RE: [suse-autoinstall] Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP) Nick, I'm out of my depth so I'll stay off the main mailing list, but here are my thoughts: I think YaST needs to form a "proposal" for the installation, which I think is what autoYaST does from the XML file before driving YaST. My experience says you can leave off all the details in the XML with regard to the disk partitioning, and then autoYaST sets up a default proposal for boot (/boot), root (/), and swap automatically for you. If you specify the individual partition information, you can override the default (I do that, for example, to increase the size of /boot for my kernel developers)... After YaST formats the partitions on the disk for you, it then mounts the root as /mnt and proceeds to install all the RPMs that make up the desired install. So, I don't really understand what you are trying to do. Ultimately, I think the root is created from scratch by YaST and then populated by the zillion RPMs in the distro. If you're talking about the actual / directory *during* the installation (before reboot), then perhaps you're referring to the initrd that remains in effect as YaST performs the install. If you wanted to change that from the one that SuSE supplies, you could definitely do that -- but that has nothing to do with the real disk on the system you're installing. Sorry for the confusion. Hope some of this is useful. -- Charlie _____________________________________________________________________ VirusChecked for the Incepta Group plc _____________________________________________________________________

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RE: [suse-autoinstall] Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP)
by Nick Forbes 01 Feb '05

01 Feb '05

Hi Charles, Sorry I should have been clearer - I do have autoyast=http://<servername>/<controlfile.xml> passed to linuxrc and it works perfectly when I use either a CD for the install media or pass install=http://<servername>/<install-dir> as well in order to do an HTTP install. The problem is that I would like to boot from the CD, load the root filesytem from the CD, but then fetch the RPM's from the HTTP server. This is what I am not sure is possible. As far as I can make out there are two ways to approach this: 1). start an autoyast install from CD but use a linuxrc command or pre-install script to tell the installer to fetch the RPM's from an HTTP server. 2). start an autoyast install from the HTTP server but use something like the "rootimage=" argument to cause the root filesystem to be loaded from the CD. I have tried rootimage=/dev/hdc/boot/root but this just causes linuxrc to try to fetch this path from the HTTP server. I hope that makes more sense. Thanks, Nick. -----Original Message----- From: Suffin, Charles [mailto:Charles.Suffin@stratus.com] Posted At: 01 February 2005 10:23 Posted To: Nick-Forbes.SPAM Conversation: [suse-autoinstall] Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP) Subject: RE: [suse-autoinstall] Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP) Nick, I'm not sure I'm reading your mail correctly, but it appears to me that you missed something very basic... In order to activate autoyast, you need to supply the control file, something like: autoyast=http://<servername>/<controlfile.xml> as a boot parameter to linuxrc... Maybe you can supply more information about what's not working? -- Charlie

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RE: [suse-autoinstall] Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP)
by Suffin, Charles 01 Feb '05

01 Feb '05

Nick, I'm not sure I'm reading your mail correctly, but it appears to me that you missed something very basic... In order to activate autoyast, you need to supply the control file, something like: autoyast=http://<servername>/<controlfile.xml> as a boot parameter to linuxrc... Maybe you can supply more information about what's not working? -- Charlie -----Original Message----- From: Nick Forbes [mailto:nick.forbes@citigatemc.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 5:14 AM To: suse-autoinstall(a)suse.com Subject: [suse-autoinstall] Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP) Hi All, For various reasons peculiar to our setup I am trying to create a hybrid auto install (SuSE 9.2) that consists of a CD with everything required for an automated installation (especially the root filesystem) except the actual RPM's themselves (the package descriptions could go either on the CD or with the RPM's)? I am not even sure if this is possible but have been tearing my hair out for days, so if anyone can shed any light on how this might be achieved, or put me out of my misery, I'd very much appreciate any help you can give. I have the auto install working perfectly from either CD or HTTP, and so far I have tried using various linuxrc options (install= rootimage= installdir= etc) as well as using a pre-install script to add sources or edit /etc/install.inf, in order to get this working. Thanks for you help, Nick. _____________________________________________________________________ VirusChecked for the Incepta Group plc _____________________________________________________________________ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-autoinstall-unsubscribe(a)suse.com For additional commands, e-mail: suse-autoinstall-help(a)suse.com

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Hybrid Auto Install (CD - FTP/HTTP)
by Nick Forbes 01 Feb '05

01 Feb '05

Hi All, For various reasons peculiar to our setup I am trying to create a hybrid auto install (SuSE 9.2) that consists of a CD with everything required for an automated installation (especially the root filesystem) except the actual RPM's themselves (the package descriptions could go either on the CD or with the RPM's)? I am not even sure if this is possible but have been tearing my hair out for days, so if anyone can shed any light on how this might be achieved, or put me out of my misery, I'd very much appreciate any help you can give. I have the auto install working perfectly from either CD or HTTP, and so far I have tried using various linuxrc options (install= rootimage= installdir= etc) as well as using a pre-install script to add sources or edit /etc/install.inf, in order to get this working. Thanks for you help, Nick. _____________________________________________________________________ VirusChecked for the Incepta Group plc _____________________________________________________________________

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<use>linux</use> partitioning option no-go?
by Schumacher, Gordon 01 Feb '05

01 Feb '05

I started to put work in towards adding "Re-use Linux partitions" as a UI checkbox in the AutoYaST screen, since it looked like it shouldn't be that hard... only to discover that it looked like most of the work had already been done. I was working on that at the same time as I was testing my latest auto-install script that used that option, only to discover that it tried to create a -754.5MB partition! So I guess the reason that the checkbox isn't there is because the feature doesn't quite work yet? Perhaps the doc should remove the mention of that for the time being? For what it's worth, I'm trying as I go to go through the YCP files and tease out the options that should go into the XML formats so that I can help get everything down "onto paper".

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