Re: How to get preseed to ASK me for hostname + strange partitioning behaviour

The problem here (though not confirmed, but sounds logical) seems to be that netcfg is done when the question about the preseed url is asked, so no matter what is set in the preseed file (although I’ve not tested to set it to something useful, since I want to set it to the serial number of the host) if no hostname is provided via DHCP ‘debian’ will always be used for hostname...

On 3 Feb 2022, at 14:04, Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> wrote:

Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org> writes:

Hi,

Jonas Bygdén <jbygden@gmail.com> wrote (Sat, 29 Jan 2022 20:24:41 +0100):
Yes, I understand that - having extensive experience with both Solaris Jumpstart and RHEL kickstart.
What I found perplexing was that regardless of setting in the preseed I still HAVE to unset the priority parameter to force the question about hostname.

Ok, I see:
when using the "Automated install" entry from the installer menu, the
"priority=critical" parameter is automatically used.

Maybe we should change that.
Will ask other people involved about their opinion here...

If the question isn't critical, then most people don't want it asked in
an automated install, because otherwise they'd be forced to preseed
things where the default is perfectly fine for them.

Automatic Install is just shorthand for adding:

auto=true priority=critical

to the kernel command line, so if that's not what you wanted, you could
use the standard install and only add the `auto=true`.

BTW I'me pretty sure it's possible to preseed `debconf/priority`
(although it might already be too late by the time the network preseed
lands to make it then ask the hostname question).

Having a quick glance at the code:

  https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/preseed/-/blob/master/auto-install.sh#L12

I don't really see how dropping the priority could stop that question
being asked ... well, unless there's also DHCP preseeding (to drop the
priority, say), in which case it looks like it assumes you'll also be
providing the url setting via DHCP as well, and therefore doesn't ask
for it.

Perhaps we need a preseed option to force the asking of the hostname
question, but I have a feeling that there ought to be some combination
of preseeding, DHCP and DNS that should already ensure that it is asked.

Cheers, Phil.
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