Bug#645765: please consider allowing to load installer components from a different mirror
On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 11:28:54PM +0200, Philipp Kern wrote: On 2011-10-18, Marc Haber mh+debian-packa...@zugschlus.de wrote: when entities deploy Debian via network install, point releases can pose challenges. For example, a site I consult for has a mirror which is rsynced daily, but the installation server is not updated automatically with the latest initrd and kernel files. There are debian-installer-6.0-netboot-* packages for this in squeeze now, FWIW. It helps in quite a bunch of cases, just maybe not in yours. (The install server needs to run on squeeze.) ;-) The install server in question is an ancient CentOS for historic reasons. [1] I don't have the slightest idea why this issue has only surfaced after 6.0.3 It certainly happens for new kernel ABIs. But yeah, point releases regularly break d-i netboot images because of the way they work. Basically whenever we respin the kernel udebs and then d-i to incorporate new security updates / other misc bugfixes. I wonder what was different here if it didn't happen with .1 or .2 (which both had non-ABI breaking d-i kernel updates). Do you have some sort of failure message? I don't remember exactly, the symptom was that the mptsas driver didn't load (and also wasn't loadable manually), leaving the system diskless. Greetings Marc -- - Marc Haber | I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | lose things.Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 31958061 Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 621 31958062 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#645765: please consider allowing to load installer components from a different mirror
Package: debian-installer Severity: wishlist Tags: d-i Hi, when entities deploy Debian via network install, point releases can pose challenges. For example, a site I consult for has a mirror which is rsynced daily, but the installation server is not updated automatically with the latest initrd and kernel files. After the last point release[1], installation was broken since the kernel from 6.0.2 wasn't willing to load the kernel modules loaded from the 6.0.3 mirror. Disk not found, game over. To get around this, I think that it would be desireable to be able to load installer components from a different source than the repository that the actual system that is being installed. That way, one would be able to dump the contents of a (probably older) netinstall CD to a web server, and point the installer to that web server while still doing the actual install from ftp.de.d.o. This could be accomplished, for example, with the following algorithm: (1) Run through the normal mirror selection process. Take answer as d-i mirror/installer/hostname (2) Check whether d-i mirror/installer/hostname is a full mirror or a installation image only (2a) if full mirror, set d-i mirror/http/hostname to d-i mirror/installer/hostname's value (3) Expert: Ask Use the same mirror to for the installation? (3a) if no, ask for d-i mirror/http/hostname (4) load installer components from d-i mirror/installer/hostname (5) install actual system from d-i mirror/http/hostname both mirror/installer/hostname and mirror/http/hostname should be preseedable. Same algorithm for other parameters such as mirror/*/directory et al. That way, one could make sure to always have an installer repository consistent with the kernel/initrd pair offered by the PXE server, and keep the triple kernel/initrd/repository stable and verified, while still installing the current point release from the actual mirror. Please consider adding this functionality to the installer; it would have saved us (and probably other installations) a lot of grief. Currently, we have a safety latch active which stops all archive updates once /debian/dists/*/main/debian-installer/*/Packages.gz changes from the file we're familiar with. This is kind of an ugly workaround, and a nicer solution would be to have the installer load its components from a dedicated URL that could be forced into sync. Greetings Marc [1] I don't have the slightest idea why this issue has only surfaced after 6.0.3 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#645765: please consider allowing to load installer components from a different mirror
On 2011-10-18, Marc Haber mh+debian-packa...@zugschlus.de wrote: when entities deploy Debian via network install, point releases can pose challenges. For example, a site I consult for has a mirror which is rsynced daily, but the installation server is not updated automatically with the latest initrd and kernel files. There are debian-installer-6.0-netboot-* packages for this in squeeze now, FWIW. It helps in quite a bunch of cases, just maybe not in yours. (The install server needs to run on squeeze.) ;-) [1] I don't have the slightest idea why this issue has only surfaced after 6.0.3 It certainly happens for new kernel ABIs. But yeah, point releases regularly break d-i netboot images because of the way they work. Basically whenever we respin the kernel udebs and then d-i to incorporate new security updates / other misc bugfixes. I wonder what was different here if it didn't happen with .1 or .2 (which both had non-ABI breaking d-i kernel updates). Do you have some sort of failure message? Kind regards Philipp Kern signature.asc Description: Digital signature
