Modifying d-i to replicate hosts

[Frederic Peters <fpeters@entrouvert.com>]

Hello,

Our local LUG (BxLUG, http://www.bxlug.be) is engaged to help setup a
few training rooms.  We used to do this with replicator (package
already in Debian) but with d-i progress I wondered how difficult it
would be to replace base-installer with another udeb whose job would
be to rsync an existing running system.

I built a rsync-udeb[1] and a replicator.udeb with this in the control
file:

  Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, mounted-partitions, rsync-udeb, created-fstab,
    archdetect
  Provides: kernel-installer
  XB-Installer-Menu-Item: 65
  Description: Install the base system, replicated from another host


I added both udebs to pkg-lists/local and built and ran demo.

Keyboard selection fails and I get to the main menu, it looks like:

 (...)
 Configure the network
 Choose a mirror of the Debian archive
 Load installer components
 fast remote file copy program (like rcp)
 Install the base system replicated from another host
 (...)


Why is there an entry in the menu with rsync-udeb description ?  How
will replicator.udeb interact with base-installer ?

Any advices on the proper way to do this ?


Thanks,

        Frederic


[1] it depends on openssh-client-udeb which should soon be available