Re: Preseeding from USB
On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 6:54 PM, T o n g <mlist4suntong@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 02 Sep 2012 15:56:03 -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
>>>
>>> If normally booted, my USB key would be sdc, should I use
>>>
>>> preseed/file=/sdc/path/preseed.cfg
>>>
>>> or /mnt/sdc or /media/its_label, or...?
>>
>> You would need to determine what the path to the install media would be
>> at boot time. I would manually boot the installer and then do Alt-F2
>> and then return to get a text console. Then I would inspect the disks
>> there to see where the installer is mounted. Then use that path.
>
> wow, I was planning to boot from CD and put preseed.cfg on USB, which
> will definitely make things even more complicated. You mean using Alt-F2
> to get a text console even before boot up process begins? IIRC, the text
> console will not be available only until the boot up process is almost
> half way through. I guess you are right, preseed.cfg has to be on the
> boot up media. But still, its path is for the installer, which can be
> entirely different than the normal /mnt/... thing.
>
> Now back to the very beginning, is this automated preseeded installation
> a feature only provided by kernel? Is the preseeded installer available
> only at boot time, or there is a tool that I can use after the system has
> booted, like debootstrap. Is it doing installation from the CD or from
> the Internet? I mean, do I have to user a certain CD, eg Debian
> installation CD, or it has nothing with the CD media so I can put the
> proper boot up instruction in my general-purpose, multi-boot USB key? Eg,
>
> kernel linux
> append auto=true priority=critical preseed/locale=en_US kbd-chooser/
> method=us preseed/url=http://192.168.13.184/preseed-files/preseed.cfg
> ramdisk_size=14984 root=/dev/rd/0 initrd=initrd.gz
>
> (copied from http://serverfault.com/questions/143296/how-to-get-http-
> preseed-to-work-correctly-on-ubuntu-10-04-lts-lucid)
>
> Furthermore info about my preseed testing: to speed up reboot & testing,
> I'm testing with VirtualBox, using ISO file as its CD. The ISO that I'm
> testing now is Ubuntu (because that's the one people most blogged about).
> That one (Ubuntu 12.04) has problem with DNS resolving at boot up time,
> so I was forced to consider providing preseed.cfg from USB, which now I
> think maybe even more troublesome. It'd be much better if the boot
> process can be decoupled from the preseeded installation.
If DNS is a problem, why don't you point to the pressed file with an ip address?
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