autoinstallscript.conf - specify partition and filesystem options

This manual page documents briefly the autoinstallscript.conf file.

The autoinstallscript.conf file contains information used by SystemImager to create an autoinstall script. The resultant autoinstall script is used to clone Linux systems.

This section is used to create a disk label and partitions on each of your autoinstall client's disks. This section is indicated with the "disk" tag.

•

disk - Partition information about a single disk.

•

dev - The device file that represents the disk in question.

•

label_type - The kind of disk label used by this disk. Currently, this can be either "msdos" or "gpt".

•

unit_of_measurement - The unit of measurement is used with "size" tags to specify the size of each partition. This can be set to MB or %.

•

part - Start of information about a new partition.

•

num - The minor device number for the partition (partition number).

•

size - The size of the partition. The unit used here should correspond to the "unit_of_measurement" setting for the entire disk.

Size can also hold the special value of "*". This is used to indicate that the specified partition should be growable to the end of the disk. If the last partition is a primary partition, then only that partition should have "*" specified. If the last partition is a logical partition, then both the logical partition, and the extended partition that contains it, should have "*" specified.

•

p_type - Partition type. This can be primary, extended, or logical for msdos labelled disks. This can only be primary for gpt labelled disks, as gpt disk labels only support primary partitions.

•

id - Partition id. This is a hex number used to specify special information about a partition. It is usually not needed and is optional. In special circumstances where it is needed, sfdisk is used to change the partition id to the specified type.

•

p_name - This is the name of a partition. Gpt partition tables support naming partitions. If you don't know what this is, you probably don't want to mess with it. A value of "-" works great (gets ignored)!

•

flags - A comma separated list (no spaces) of flags used to specify particulars about a partition. Possible values are: boot, hidden, raid, lvm, and lba.

This section is used to create filesystems on each of the used partitions, and to create an fstab file on the autoinstall client. Each line of this section is indicated with the "fsinfo" tag.

•

fsinfo - Start of a new line of information for the fstab file and/or for filesystem creation information.

•

line - This is used to indicate the order that lines should be put into the fstab file on the autoinstall client.

•

comment - Indicates a comment that should be included in the fstab file, but is not used for any other processing.

•

real_dev - The first field in the fstab file. This is the device where the filesystem resides. It is put into the generated fstab file and is the device used to mount filesystems on the finished machine when it reboots.

•

mount_dev - Usually the first field in the fstab file will be an actual device file like "/dev/sda1", but may sometimes look like "LABEL=/boot" or "UUID=c1b9d5a2-f162-11cf-9ece-0020afc76f16". In the case that it is a LABEL or UUID, instead of a real device, we use mount_dev to specify the information that will be put in the fstab file to mount the filesystem after the autoinstall client is imaged. LABEL and UUID information is stored as part of the filesystem, not as part of the partition. See fstab(5) for more information. mount_dev will only exist if a LABEL or UUID is used.

•

mp - The second field in the fstab file. Mount point. This is the name of the directory where the filesystem should be mounted. See fstab(5) for more information.

•

fs - The third field in the fstab file. This is where you specify what filesystem you want created on the partition specified on "mount_dev" (or "real_dev"). Valid filesystem types supported by SystemImager are: ext2, ext3, msdos, reiserfs, vfat, jfs, xfs

•

mkfs_opts - Certain filesystems may require additional information to properly create a filesystem. Currently, this is only used by msdos and vfat filesystems. Valid values for msdos and vfat filesystems are "-F 12", "-F 16", or "-F 32" to specify the FAT size. If you don't know what you need, or don't care, you can leave this blank and defaults will be used.

•

options - The fourth field in the fstab file. Options needed when mounting the filesystem. If you don't know that you need any special options, just use "default". See fstab(5) for more information.

•

dump - The fifth field in the fstab file. This should be a number that is used by dump(8). If you don't know what to put here, just use "0". See fstab(5) for more information.

•

pass - The sixth field in the fstab file. This is used by the fsck program to determine the order in which filesystem checks are done at boot time. See fstab(5) for more information.

•

format - Used to tell SystemImager to not create a filesystem on a partition. If this is set to "no", the filesystem will not be created. If it is absent, or contains any other value, then a filesystem will be created.

This section contains miscellaneous settings used by BOEL (Brian's Own Embedded Linux), the embedded linux that performs an install on autoinstall clients.

•

devstyle - Tells the autoinstallscript to mount the devfs filesystem in the image prior to running System Configurator, which prepares the client's boot loader. Many boot loaders need to access the disks at this point, and systems that use devfs won't have any device files in the freshly copied image for the boot loader to use (at this point, BOEL has done a chroot into the root of the filesystem on the freshly installed client).

If you make a change to this file that could affect the boot process, for example, changing your root device, then you must also modify your boot loader's configuration file. This file can be modified either directly in the image, or in an override directory. For more information on override directories, see the full manual in /usr/share/doc/systemimager-doc/ or at http://systemimager.org/documentation/.

mkautoinstallscript(8), fstab(5)

More details can be found in the SystemImager manual.

This manual page was compiled by dann <<dannf@debian.org>> for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).