Re: Debconf preloading, standard method?

[Sam Vilain <sam@vilain.net>]

Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net> wrote:

> cat /var/cache/debconf/config.dat |
> 	ssh root@host "DEBCONF_FALLBACK=Pipe apt-get install ssh"

Yes, I considered this; however this means you'll have to copy all of
standard input into a temporary backend, unless you can guarantee
dpkg-preconfigure/etc are only going to run once.  Otherwise the
second time it runs it will get nothing from standard input.

> I think this is a the right approach. I will change the dbdriver
> parameter passing a bit for consistency:
> DEBCONF_DB_FALLBACK='File{filename:/var/run/config.dat blah:bah}'

Looks good, if a little bit more verbose :-)

> I'm unsure whether it would still be useful to add a format driver
> for a much simplified file format that lets you only set seen flag
> and default quesiton value. That might help if you want to write a
> override database file by hand or modify one, but perhaps it's
> sufficiently easy with the existing 822 format driver.

debconf-show format for individual installations perhaps?

debconf-show ssh | ssh host \
    "DEBCONF_DB_FALLBACK='Pipe{format:debconf-show}' \
     apt-get install ssh"

I think your man page is good, if slightly colloquial in places.
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