man sysinstall

[Jared Barneck]

--- "mailinglists at bsdcertification.com"
<mailinglists at bsdcertification.com> wrote:

> Ceri Davies wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 07:28:39PM -0500, Tom
> Rhodes wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:54:47 +0000
> >>Ceri Davies <ceri at submonkey.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >>>On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 11:05:13PM -0800, BSD
> Certification Team wrote:
> >>>      
> >>>
> >>>>Hello all,
> >>>>
> >>>>The man page for sysinstall is pretty out of
> date.  I
> >>>>am trying to PXE boot to an unattended install.
> >>>>
> >>>>I figured out that I needed to add dists=base
> kernels
> >>>>GENERIC even though kernels and GENERIC are not
> in the
> >>>>list in the man page.
> >>>>
> >>>>Is there anyone in charge of updating this
> >>>>information?  I have never submitted an update.
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>>I guess that's me.  Could you please raise a PR
> and send me the number?
> >>>      
I sent in a PR.  Let me know if you don't get it.
> >>>
> >>I tried with almost every version of 5.X to get an
> unattended
> >>install working.  Never worked.  It seems as if
> sysinstall
> >>was looking only for a USB floppy drive. 
> Originally I started
> >>looking over the code to send in a PR and perhaps
> a patch,
> >>but became busy with other things.
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >I can't speak for 5.x because I didn't really run
> it, but this worked
> >for 6.x a year ago:
> http://typo.submonkey.net/articles/2006/02/12/
> >
> >  
> >
> I am actually pxe booting to it now.  However, I am
> using pxe-1.4.2 
> instead of having it all in the dhcp config. 
> 
> Also, I saw a not that the floppy drive is not
> working.  I couldn't get 
> it to work either.  I am doing this all PXE style.
> 
I was using FreeBSD, isc-dhcp-server, pxe-1.4.2, and
tftp and ftp from inetd to pxe boot and didn't really
try the floppy so I tried the floppy.

I have tested two separate hardware machines and
VMWare  5.d and I cannot get the floppy to detect and
read the install.cfg.  I have tried both MS-DOS floppy
and a floppy formatted with UFS, so I am guessing this
is broken too.

So with the PXE solution, I have almost everything
working: I cannot get the machine to automatically
reboot.  This is the one last thing I need for full
automation.

So it looks like there are three issues that some of
us who "donate time" could address:

1. Update man sysinstall which I submitted a PR for.
2. Fix the floppy not being detected.
3. Figure out how to reboot once the unattended
install completes.

> 
> >The OP's note about adding the kernels line is
> definitely needed and I'll
> >fix that (though I would really love a PR for it),
> but for anything
> >else, you have to send hardware (a laptop or
> Soekris, I'm not fussy!) :)
> >
> >Ceri
> >  
> >

I will settle for the updated man page for now.  I
wish I could just send everyone a laptop.  :-)  



 
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