Source: preseed Version: 1.115 Severity: important Tags: d-i Dear Maintainer,
This bugreport is a subset/related-to bug #1031643, also in preseed. When the 'hostname' preseed alias for 'netcfg/get_hostname' is provided to Bookworm's RC 2 installer as a kernel command-line argument, the value that it contains unexpectedly takes higher precedence over a hostname received from DHCP, contrary to the Installation Guide documentation[1] in combination with the corresponding netcfg documentation[2]. Conditions: * Preseed alias 'hostname' configured on the kernel command-line * There is a DHCP server on the installation-target's network that will provide a hostname Expected behaviour: * Installer does not ask for installation-target hostname * Installation-target hostname is received and configured using DHCP Actual behaviour: * [good] Installer does not ask for hostname * [bad] Hostname is configured from the command-line, ignoring the DHCP-negotiated hostname. * This is similar to 'netcfg/hostname' -- a different setting from 'netcfg/get_hostname'. Context: Since Linux 6.0, a 'hostname=...' parameter provided in the kernel command-line is no-longer loaded into the init process environment as a variable, but is instead used to set the hostname of the running system (skipping the need for userspace tooling to achieve that). That caused a conflict for the preseed aliases in the Debian Installer, because one of the aliases is also 'hostname', mapped to 'netcfg/get_hostname'. The fix applied in #1031643 loads the 'running system hostname' into the environment if it is non-empty and not equal to '(none)'. This allows unattended installs to work again. The 'netcfg' component that determines the system hostname (prompting for it from the operator if required) to be installed will prefer a non-empty hostname (as long as it is not the literal string '(none)') over one provided by DHCP in this block of code: https://sources.debian.org/src/netcfg/1.185/dhcp.c/#L578 Thanks, James [1] - https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/apbs02.en.html#preseed-aliases [2] - https://sources.debian.org/src/netcfg/1.185/debian/netcfg-common.templates/?hl=145#L160
