From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 17:15:04 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5806E106566B; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:15:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 232638FC16; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:15:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (66.111.2.69.static.nyinternet.net [66.111.2.69]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id D315246B0C; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:15:03 -0500 (EST) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (unknown [209.249.190.10]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 45E0E8A009; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:15:03 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: Nathan Whitehorn Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:14:57 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/7.4-CBSD-20110107; KDE/4.4.5; amd64; ; ) References: <201102220745.45695.jhb@freebsd.org> <4D63E3B9.8030308@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <4D63E3B9.8030308@freebsd.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201102221214.58073.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:15:03 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.3 at bigwig.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.5 required=4.2 tests=BAYES_00,MAY_BE_FORGED, RDNS_DYNAMIC autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on bigwig.baldwin.cx Cc: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, grarpamp , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:15:04 -0000 On Tuesday, February 22, 2011 11:26:33 am Nathan Whitehorn wrote: > On 02/22/11 06:45, John Baldwin wrote: > > On Saturday, February 19, 2011 4:34:11 am grarpamp wrote: > >> Sysinstall is fine, as I'm sure any replacement will be. So I'll > >> just note a few things I'd like to see in any such replacement... > >> > >> 1 - I used install.cfg's on floppies to clone systems, a lot. Hands > >> on the box were needed with that. Operators skills were in question, > >> so having them use the dialog menus properly was a pain and often > >> resulted in non-zeroed disk or half built systems. And though all > >> else was cloned, it needed a separate.cfg for each box due > >> to: > >> > >> fqdn, gateway, ip/mask > >> interface - sometimes changed > >> root disk - sometimes changed > >> > >> Would have killed for a simple console shell script to ask those > >> questions of the operator, per machine. > > > > Actually, you can do that if you are a bit creative (add a few more tools to > > the mfsroot, and use the 'system' command in install.cfg to invoke a shell > > script that then generates a foo.cfg you later include via loadConfig, but > > I've covered that at multiple conferences by now). That said, I'm hopeful > > that the new installer will be more flexible in less hackish ways while > > letting you do things like PXE boot to a shell where you can use mfiutil to > > create a RAID-5 volume and then invoke the installer on that, etc. > > This is something that I very explicitly built in to the design of > bsdinstall. When the installer starts (as well as at several other > points), you are offered an option to bring up a shell specifically to > do things like this. Scripted installs are just shell scripts instead of > a configuration file, so it is trivial to interleave complicated things > like this. Yes, I should have worded it a bit differently in that I do actually think that is true from what little I have seen and the "hopeful" bit more refers to my being able to adopt it locally. -- John Baldwin