In the end, the problem was somewhat elusive. I spent a good amont of time with Novell support, and they pretty much had me follow your method..Starting really simple. That didn't work, but it ruled out my control file.. Given that much information, I wiped my installation source and started again, bingo, problem solved. I had some half copied directories in there. Michael Hans-Joachim Ehlers wrote:

Hi Michael, sometime things are not the way they should be. Its took me about one week to get an auto install for a simple network installation and this list to solve some major understanding problems. From what i am right now know it should take only a hour to understand the whole process. But that's another story.

So back to your problem. Like i said before: Create a simple xml file for installation. Do not use a reference. For testing there is just no need.

Since you are at a remote location you might consider using the "vnc" option for installation. I never tested it. But from my understanding a VNC server will be started so you can remotely connect. ( i think it is used for headless system. ) See http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/15568.html for details

Also please do not complain about autoyast: Its a nice tool which will sometimes gives you a lession in " zen and the are of patience" .

So please post your info file and your command line options and try vnc to find out whats going on your client.

A good book ( pdf) is:

Autoyast Automatic Linux Installation and Configuration with Yast2 by Anas Nashif, Suse Linux AG

hth Hajo

who is now facing of MAINTAINING a suse system.

...

...

...

"Michael T. Halligan" 08/26/05 3:34 pm >>>

Is there any way to redirect all of these logs to a loghost, if there's

more that isn't being seen when I boot with loghost=IP.ADDR. It's pretty complicated

for me to get to my datacenter right now, and remote serial console on these dells do not work (of course dell, in theirvery helpful way, has told me there will

be new firmwares in a month).

What I really don't get, is why should there be ANY problem with installing a server from a reference profile? Shouldn't that install also have failed then?

It seems that autoyast is just writing ugly xml and then not being able to read it back in?

...

From my experience:

...

Keep thinks simple in the beginning

1 ) So no software raid and what so ever. - Simple Partition schema - Do not name the disk for installation ( SATA will be detected as /dev/sd[a-z]X devices 2 ) use text mode for Installation ( Graphical Installations fails

for

...

me ) 3 ) Have a large defined swap partition because if you use http for installation autoyast will copy pretty much of the installation to

its

...

local ram disk ( memory ) You can use "top" on a different terminal 4) Take a look at the /var/log/Yast log files ( The ones on the ram disk ) 5) Switch to terminal 4 ( from memory ) to see what has been loaded

and

...

what has happend.

hth Hajo

...

...

...

"Michael T. Halligan" 08/26/05 3:02 pm >>>

So I've been struggling for a couple of days trying to get AutoYast

to

...

work. I can install on these servers manually.. However, if I create

a

...

reference profile, or creaet my own profile, or really do anything with autoyast, every time I try to install, the

...

server gets as far as loading the device driver disks, then stops

with

...

a big red box reading "An error occurred during installation" That's it.

I built an installation source using SLES 9S SP2 x86_64. I am trying to boot with y2debug and setting a loghost, but the messages i'm getting

...

aren't exactly helpful. The servers I'm installing on are del sc1425s with single 3ghz procs and dual sata drives. I'm attempting to setup sles9-sp2 with software raid1. Any help would be appreciated.

The last few lines I'll see in syslog are: ug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(Refresh):407 start refresh ... Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ncurses]

NCurses.cc(SetTitle):459

...

Draw title called Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(Refresh):411 done refresh ... Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3606]: <1> [wfm] Y2WFMComponent.cc(SetLanguage):403 SET encoding to: UTF-8 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Accept" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Add" -> F3 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Back" -> F8 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Cancel" -> F9 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Do Not Accept" -> F9 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Don't install" -> F9 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Finish" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Help" -> F1 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Install" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Next" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "No" -> F9 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "OK" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Quit" -> F9 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Save" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Yes" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Close" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Continue" -> F10 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Delete" -> F5 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3642]: <1> [ui] YUI_builtins.cc(evaluateSetFunctionKeys):1652 Mapping "Edit" -> F4 Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3606]: <1> [YCP] StorageDevices.ycp:243 before .probe.floppy Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3606]: <1> [YCP] StorageDevices.ycp:245

after

...

.probe.floppy Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3606]: <1> [YCP] StorageDevices.ycp:267 FloppyDrives [] Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3606]: <1> [ui-ncurses] YNCursesUI.cc(YNCursesUI):114 Stop YNCursesUI Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3606]: <1> [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(NCurses):160 Shutdown NCurses... Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3606]: <1> [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(NCurses):169 NCurses down Aug 25 22:10:39 BOB yast2[3606]: <1> [liby2] genericfrontend.cc(main):437 Finished YaST2 component 'y2base'

-- Michael T. Halligan Chief Technology Officer ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER 415.724.7998 (Mobile) 415.520.0876 (Fax)