Hi, I want to set the root password to a random string. this is the preseed I use:
d-i preseed/early_command string \ pw="$(tr -dc A-Za-z0-9 </dev/urandom | head -c 24)"; \ debconf-set passwd/root-password "$pw"; \ debconf-set passwd/root-password-again "$pw" However, the installer still prompts me for the root password. Setting the crypted password works though: d-i preseed/early_command string \ debconf-set passwd/root-password-crypted '<crypted-string>' Directly setting the password also works: d-i passwd/root-password password r00tme d-i passwd/root-password-again password r00tme >From https://sources.debian.org/src/user-setup/1.88/user-setup-ask/#L36, it seems the installer will ask for the root password if root-password-crypted is empty or !. My guess is that in the direct version, somehow root-password-crypted gets a corresponding value when only root-password and root-password-again are set, but I couldn't find the code responsible for that. I'd be grateful if anyone could shed some light.