Auto Install for Mandrakelinux
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Introduction

Summary

The Mandrakelinux Distribution provides a facility, DrakX, which allows for the automated installation on to computers that you use or manage.

The DrakX graphic installer has the capability of being used in the both interactive and automated modes. This document deals specifically with it's automated capability.

Automated Installation is intended for situations where the same 'Install' set is to be placed on multiple computers. This can be a substantial time saver for anyone. More importantly, the automation means that you do not have to sit in front of each computer filling in the blanks, picking this and that and hoping that you remember the selections you chose the previous time.

As a side benefit, it can be used as an emergency backup to re-install the same packages and basic configuration data on a computer that failed, lost everything and your normal back-ups can not be used to restore the computer.

I am sure that there are more reasons to use the automated features, but that's your experiment. Me, I was just tired of having to remember what I installed the last time. Also, this document provides me with the opportunity to give back to the Linux community something in kind.

The following sections will provide an overview of the process, details regarding the Install disks and the configuration files which drive the installation process.

Copyrights, Trademarks, Credits

Copyright © 2002,2003,2004 by David Eastcott.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Mandrakelinux is trademark of MandrakeSoft S.A.



Credits: The Staff at MandrakeSoft for providing this capability.

This document is based on the original DrakX documents provided by MandrakeSoft.

Special thanks to Pixel and Guillaume Cottenceau at MandrakeSoft for their suggestions, corrections, insight and patience.



Conventions Used in this Document



This document presents information in different ways in an attempt to differentiate between regular text and text which has special meaning or usage. The following table illustrates the various text forms:

This is regular text

General text used through out this document. Those of you viewing the HTML forms of this document can change this font to one you prefer through your browsers settings. The use of Bold and Italic have been minimized but are used to provide emphasis in the text you are reading.

/root/drakx/

A mono-spaced font is used to represent any text which you would see in a text file or could be expected to type at a command line. Including directories, file names and commands.

New Versions

Hyper-link to sections within the scope of this document.

http://www.mandrakesoft.com

Hyper-link to web sites on the internet. Since this document is available in non-web page form I have tried to minimize the use of hyper-links which do not explicitly contain the URL to external web sites.

kernel vmlinuz
append kickstart=...

Text with a Light Blue background is used to indicate the contents (fragments too) of text found in the isolinux.cfg, menu.lst, syslinux.cfg and auto_inst.cfg files. For those of you reading a paper copy, it will probably be difficult to distinguish between blue and grey.

#!/bin/bash
#

Text with a Light Grey background is used to indicate the contents of other files, predominantly Bash/Perl Scripts but may include file fragments which are illustrating the use of concepts presented in the document.



The following Icons are used to provide special emphasis regarding the text to its immediate right:



Indicates that the text is providing important clarification or information and should be examined closely.



Indicates something that you should NOT do, or at least be very certain that you understand the consequences if you do.



Indicates that the text is describing optional information which is outside the scope of this document and that you may find useful.



Indicates something that would probably make your experience with the concepts in this document a bit more enjoyable.



New Versions

This document has been revised to conform with the capabilities of the 10.0 release. It is available in a number of formats, as an OpenOffice document, Adobe PDF (optimized for printing), HTML (both as a single file and multi-part hyper-linked) and PostScript.

You can find this document on the Mandrakelinux web site at:

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/drakx (then look for the 'kickstart' link)

or:

For current HTML and PDF versions as I generate them or, for older versions and my small collection of related stuff you can visit:

http://members.shaw.ca/mandrake/

If you find an error or some feature I missed you can contact me by email at david@eastcott.net.

New / Changes in this Version

10.0.3

2004-05-02

Adjustments:

Change distribution name to Mandrakelinux.

Creating a Mastering File Set: added definition for second DVD.

A Script Based Updater: adjusted script to use find instead of ls, since large list of files breaks ls.

Alternate for Creating an Updated CD Set: adjusted script to create both DVDs.


10.0.02

2004-03-12

Adjustments:

Conventions Used in this Document: added description.

Installation Methods: added a description for the HD_Grub boot diskette and some minor editorial things.

Contents of the HD_Grub Boot Diskette: added description.

Anatomy of the Boot Loader Configuration Files: replaces the section title Anatomy of the 'syslinux.cfg' and 'isolinux.cfg' Files, adjusted text to describe the three boot loader files in more detail.

Anatomy of the 'auto_inst.cfg' File:

manualFstab: added 'toFormatCheck' and re-use partitions example.

partitions: added some options.

services: remove 'udev' service and add warning about getting services actually generated.

useSupermount: add 'magicdev' option description.

Scratch Built Auto Install Diskette: added Grub Auto Install Diskette.

Problems and Issues: add issues about the Community Release.


10.0.01

2004-02-20

Adjustments:

Contents of the Boot CD-ROM and Diskette: add test directory.

Network Auto Install Diskette Set: remove Test Drive warning and adjust text for latest stage1 improvements.

Boot CD-ROM and Auto Install Diskette: add note that the diskette can be both vfat or ext2.

Problems and Issues: remove Dual Diskette Network Install Hack.

Total reformatting and cleanups for html versions.


10.0.0

2004-02-15

Initial adjustments for 10.0:

Introduction: introduce the 'boot.iso' solution and expand descriptions to include the contents of a CD-ROM created from the 'boot.iso' file.

Anatomy of the 'syslinux.cfg' and 'isolinux' Files: added information for isolinux, added parameters proxy_host and proxy_port.

Anatomy of the 'auto_inst.cfg' File: minor changes identified in the Options Summary table.

Advanced Features: removed warning about IP-based Naming bug.

Scratch Built Auto Install Diskette: adjusted and added sections for creating the Network Diskette Set and the Boot CD-ROM methods.

Creating an Updated Installation CD Set: adjusted myCD.conf and a few minor script fixes.

Problems and Issues: updated with issues as of cooker 2004-02-14.












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