Re: Preseeding from USB
Wow, that's a fast and comprehensive answer. I didn't expect the answer
comes back so quickly. Thanks.
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. That will make
troubleshooting much much easier.
Thanks
--
Tong (remove underscore(s) to reply)
http://xpt.sourceforge.net/techdocs/
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