Ralph Seichter wrote:

I need to do custom installations of SuSE Linux 8.2 on industry box computers without Floppy or CDROM, using only the PXE network boot support provided by the BIOS and GRUB.

The toughest part seems to be to get the initial ramdisk (initrd) populated and running, and I can't seem to find enough valid information on this subject. I have adapted /sbin/mk_initrd, but I'm probably doing something wrong there.

you dont need to build the initrd by yourself. Its already on the CDs in /boot/loader/, unless of course you are talking about something completly different :-) take the kernel and the initrd from there and thats all what you need for pxe and netbooting, nothing else.

I am not quite sure if this mailing list is the right place to ask for help regarding ramdisk usage. If it is not, please point me to the right list.

This list also deals with those things needed for bootstraping. Anas

Thank you.

Ralph Seichter wrote:

Anas Nashif wrote:

...

you dont need to build the initrd by yourself. Its already on the CDs in /boot/loader/, unless of course you are talking about something completly different :-)

I think my original message might have been misleading, so let me explain in more detail:

I've set up a regular PC with SuSE 8.2, installed a TFTP server and a DHCP server, and configured the latter to provide BOOTP aswell. Let's call this one "server". I copied the default linux kernel and initrd from the 8.2 installation media and edited GRUB's menu.lst to allow access to these files. I also mounted the installation media on a directory where it can be served by a regular FTP server.

The second computer, let's call it "client", features a hard disk and network interface which supports PXE, but no floppy or CDROM. I've already managed to boot "client" with the help of "server", then chose "(nd)/menu.lst" as the configuration file, and started the SuSE 8.2 installation process. This manual installation was successful, and "client" can boot from its own hard disk now.

What I need to do is to customize the installation process. Given a configuration file with a few basics (i.e. the network address), a virgin "client" should boot over the network, have its hard disk partitioned, file systems created, partitions mounted, and then start a hands-free installation with a predefined subset of RPM packages. User interaction should be as close to zero as possible, because later on, these installations are to be performed by remote maintenace personnel without Linux skills.

And thats exactly what autoyast does? Are you trying to do it on your own?

To achieve this, I tried to create my own initrd file using a modified version of /sbin/mk_initrd as a starting point. My idea is to copy commands like mount, mkfs etc. to the initrd, add device files like /dev/hda[0-9] etc., and then use a shell script as my /linuxrc which does the partitioning and the further steps. This part is giving me great difficulties.

Why not use autoyast?

Is my approach reasonable, or is there a better way to perform a hands-free installation for network booting computers?

Well it is reasoable if you want to reinvent the wheel :-) Anas

Ralph Seichter wrote:

Anas Nashif wrote:

...

And thats exactly what autoyast does? Are you trying to do it on your own?

I enquired about "autoyast" a while ago (not here, mind you). I was told that autoyast is not flexible enough for this task, and that it does not support network based installations. If I get you right, you seem to indicate that it does feature network support?

...

Well it is reasoable if you want to reinvent the wheel :-)

I'm feeling kinda stupid. Very stupid, to be quite frank. I've taken the judgment on autoyast without further questions, because the source of the information has so far been a reliable one. I should probably have tested things myself, though. I certainly know someone who owes me a beer now. Dang! :-/

Could you perhaps point me to the best source of information (FAQ, Tutorials, etc.) on autoyast? It seems to be the tool of choice for what I need to accomplish. Thanks!

http://www.suse.de/~nashif/autoinstall/ Anas

Bjorn Tore Sund wrote:

It's matured rapidly, though. In SuSE 8.1 it's more than flexible enough for most of *my* purposes [...]. I haven't checked AutoYast with SuSE 8.2 yet.

I have tinkered with the SuSE 8.2 AutoYaST for some hours now, and it looks very promising.

As Anas said, http://www.suse.de/~nashif/autoinstall/index.html What is missing is a more readable run-through of the AutoYast DTD and tags.

It also appears that the configuration examples' DTDs are slightly different from the ones in 8.2's /usr/share/autoinstall/dtd. I use jEdit with the XML plugin by S. Pestov & A. Kaplan, and it showed me loads of DTD violations when I tried to work on the examples. For XML beginners, this could be very confusing, especially if they can't use a validating editor and stumble over runtime errors later on. Talking of possible errors: The 8.2 KDE AutoYaST module produced a configuration file including the following (other settings of the "general" section omitted). <general> <clock> <hwclock>UTC</hwclock> <timezone>Etc/UTC</timezone> </clock> <keyboard> <keymap>german</keymap> </keyboard> <language>en_US</language> </general> After installation, the clock was set correctly, the system language aswell, but the keyboard setting was US English instead of German. Is this a bug, or am I missing something?

There's a profile overview under the 8.1 docs, but I miss something I can print out - something like what was included in the early versions of the AutoYast documentation.

Anas' documentation has already helped me a lot. However, a step- by-step description would even increase the usefulness. If this was even printable, all the better.

I'm hanging on to my copy of one of those specifically because I love the reference part even if it's getting outdated.

Do you only have the printout left, or the source file aswell? I would not mind the latter being sent by e-mail in my general direction... ;-) -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Yours sincerely Dipl. Inform. Ralph Seichter