Autoinstall(8) and its ability to automate the trivial but time
consuming task of typing info like keyboard layout and network setup -
not to mention encrypted passwords and ssh keys! - by supplying the
information in a response file, is great. Add the ability to supply a
template for disklabel and it is absolutely wonderful.
However, there appears to be a fly in the ointment: If you want to
deviate from the "one disk, one disklabel"-dogma, like when needing a
partially encrypted installation, you're out of luck!
I'm in need of rolling out machines with a close to FDE configuration.
"Close to" meaning a single physical disk where everything is encrypted
except for a root partition. (Please don't ask why. I have good reasons
and run a lot of machines with a setup like this. I would simply like to
automate the cumbersome installation process.)
I do a PXE boot and select (S)hell to prepare the disk after bsd.rd has
fired up:
# disklabel -E sd0 (phsyical disk)
a a (specifying a 1G partion)
a p (specifying a 249G for softraid crypto)
w
q
# bioctl -c C -l /dev/sd0p softraid0
entering passphrase x 2
# cd /dev; sh ./MAKEDEV sd1
Then I start autoinstall:
# autoinstall
So far so good. At this point autoinstall will recognize the root disk
[sd0] and the additional encrypted volume [sd1].
Available disks are sd0, sd1.
In the response file I have:
Which disk is the root disk = sd0
But, from here on things start to go wrong.
If I'm not supplying a template for disklabel, the installer will assume
I want to use the whole disk and will autopartition it, removing the
crypto partition (p) in the process. But, if I DO supply a template for
disklabel, the installer will ALSO remove the crypto partion. It may
fail with:
disklabel: ioctl DIOCWDINFO: Open partition would move or shrink
Guess I'm out of luck and will have to revert to manual install.
>From what I'm able to infer, autoinstall (and perhaps the manuel
installer as well) would benefit from being able to recognize something
like:
Use (A)uto layout, (E)dit auto layout, (K)eep existing layout or
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
create (C)ustom layout = K
That way, one could manually setup disks and initiate any RAID
configuration before starting autoinstall - leaning back and watch it
complete the job?
Erling
