From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 21:13:46 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B1E071065693; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nwhitehorn@freebsd.org) Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [128.104.255.119]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 720BD8FC15; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id BE684582D8; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:13:45 -0600 (CST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at icecube.wisc.edu Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10030) with ESMTP id ddZm2ZCMKBJ9; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:13:45 -0600 (CST) Received: from wanderer.tachypleus.net (i3-dhcp-172-16-223-197.icecube.wisc.edu [172.16.223.197]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87D85582D7; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:13:45 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <4D642709.6080604@freebsd.org> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:13:45 -0600 From: Nathan Whitehorn User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20110103 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: John Baldwin References: <201102220745.45695.jhb@freebsd.org> <4D63E3B9.8030308@freebsd.org> <201102221214.58073.jhb@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <201102221214.58073.jhb@freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, grarpamp Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13:46 -0000 On 02/22/11 11:14, John Baldwin wrote: > 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. > Ah, understood. Speaking of which, there is a new amd64 snapshot ISO with bsdinstall on it (an i386 ISO should follow in the next day or so): http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/bsdinstall-amd64-20110222.iso.bz2 This is more or less the planned final form of the installer and layout of the install media, so I would very much appreciate testing at this point. Pending a small patch to the distributeworld target currently under review, this will be followed by patches to the release Makefile to change the default installer to bsdinstall in -CURRENT. Barring any objections, I hope to have that second patch in the tree by mid-March. -Nathan