On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 14:50:26 +1000 William Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 11 Jul 2020, at 07:05, josef Reidinger <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > this friday I decide to look what competition offers for > > automated/unattended installation. Here are some of my notes: > > > > Available: > > debian: https://wiki.debian.org/AutomatedInstallation including FAI > > ubuntu: kickstart compatibility > > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KickstartCompatibility > > redhat: kickstart > > https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/installation_guide/sect-kickstart-howto > > > > > > Kickstart > > text file with syntax. Recommended way for creation is cloning of manual > > installation. > > Also UI is available, but does not support advanced partitioning and not > > for everyone. > > Interesting feature is that kickstart allow to specify on failure script > > (both user error %onerror and program error %traceback ) which is executed > > when fatal failure happen. This is often used for debugging and error > > reporting. > > Also all pre,post,etc script has option --erroronfail which makes failure > > of script fatal for whole installation. > > What I really like about kickstart documentation is that they mention when > > it is introduced, when it is deprecated and when it is removed for each > > option. > > I have to say also that I found kickstart file more readable then autoyast > > XML. See examples at > > http://www.stratuslab.eu/fp7/doku.php/tutorial:baseimagecreationkickstart.html > > and I think you get quickly idea what each line means. > > Kickstart allows composition using including of other files. This is used > > for dynamic content together with pre script and include of file generated > > by script. > > What surprise me that autoyast allows much more schemas to locate its file. > > E.g. ftp is not supported in kickstart. > > > > > > kickstart also creates a template in /root from any install so that you can > *easily* recreate the system. AutoYAST doesn't do this, and because the > syntax is more complex, it's really hard to start with and get a working or > reproducable build. > > So maybe a start is yast creating a "/root/autoyast.xml" if you want to > "recreate" the system the way you built it? Actually this works in autoyast if product wants to do it by default. It should done for SLE and not done for openSUSE ( product can control it ). And even if product does not create it by default, you can always run `yast2 clone_system` which creates it for you. If it does not work, please report a bug. > > > > > FAI > > https://fai-project.org/ > > Based on cfengine. Supports also SUSE, but main target is debian. It has > > also web service ( quite limited ) to generate modified installation image. > > what is nice that they has users survey publically available. So I see in > > some of their report that users use it even for SLE, others use autoyast > > and fai only for debian. would be nice to have similar survey. > > I would like to play a bit more with FAI, as I see also opportunity to > > contribute there and help some SUSE/openSUSE users which prefer cfengine. > > > > > > Visibility of autoyast > > When I am searching for competition I am also interested how autoYaST is > > visible: > > Googling "unattended installation" no chance, "unattended installation > > linux" nothing, "unattended installation suse" shows finally autoyast. > > "automatic installation" no chance, "automatic installation linux" autoyast > > is heavily beaten by fai and kickstart, autoyast is on second page at > > bottom, "automatic instalation suse" is clear win. > > This is probably more a reflection of how autoyast being hard to use today, > which makes it so that people don't often use it, leading to lower google > search rates. > > So making autoyast really really easy to use and configure would probably > boost that, > If you have more ideas how to make it easier to use and configurable, do not hesitate to speak to us. Any ideas are welcome ( no guarantee to implement it :) > Hope that helps! any feedback helps. Josef > > > > > > I hope you find this useful. > > > > Josef > > -- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > > To contact the owner, e-mail: [email protected] > > > > — > Sincerely, > > William Brown > > Senior Software Engineer, 389 Directory Server > SUSE Labs > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] To contact the owner, e-mail: [email protected]
