You should have already decided by now using the Quick Guide section of this HOWTO whether you are going to install your machine using the automated process or a manual process. The automated process under SuSE is known as AutoYaST and in short provides you with a configuration file for the machine that you are going to install so that you can perform unattended installs of client machines.
You only need to read/follow this section if you are intending to use an automated install process, if you intend to do a manual installation over your network then skip this section. Here we go through the process of creating configuration files that the installer will read in order to create the configuration of our client machine we are installing during an unattended network installation.
In order to start creating your config files you will need to install the AutoYaST module for YaST2 on your SuSE machine. You will need three RPMs for this, all of which are on your SuSE source media e.g. CDs. The three RPMs are:
Check to see if you already have them installed with the command:
rpm -q {rpm package name}
If these packages are not installed then install with the command:
rpm -Uvh {rpm package name}
Once you have confirmed that you have the AutoYaST packages installed on your system, you can now start to create configuration files. For most situations the basic configuration described here will be sufficient to perform your installations.
Start the YaST2 Autoinstall configuration GUI with the command:
yast2 autoyast
You will now be presented with a window that allows you to configure most of your installation options as if you were installing a new machine or performing an upgrade. You can proceed through the menu system configuring your options for a particular system or set of similar systems that you wish to automatically install. Alternatively, you can create class definitions which allows you to save different parts of the configuration setup and then use different classes for different sets of machines.
The use of classes is particularly good when you have a set of systems that are similar but that you would like installed in slightly different ways. For example, you could create a class definition for the hardware setup of all your client machines and create a separate class for the packages you want installed on them, whether they are server machines, test machines, workstations, etc. You can then choose which classes are used by which machines when they are installed. In our example here, all the machines would use the same hardware setup, but the workstation machines could install our workstation class of packages, test machines the test class, etc.
Once you have progressed through each configuration screen in the config setup GUI from YaST2 you are ready to save out your configuration file to disk. NOTE: it is outside the boundaries of this document to take you through each configuration option for installation, we are just concerned with the principles of network installs here. Please consult your SuSE documentation or the SuSE Website for this information.
When you save your configuration files they will be stored locally in two different locations depending on what file you have created as follows:
/var/lib/autoinstall/repository/var/lib/autoinstall/classes
Before attempting advanced configuration please make sure that you have first created a valid basic configuration file as described above. It is perfectly possible to create your own configuration files from scratch but it is far easier to use the tools provided to do the job for you!
Once you have your configuration file saved, you can open it in your favourite text editor. The file is in XML format so it is particularly easy to follow and edit manually. You can use or modify any of the existing tags in your file, just so long as the tags, options, and syntax you use are legal. A full guide to the tags and their usage can be found in the AutoYaST manual, please see Appendix A of this guide for a reference.
The best use of editing the configuration file manually is probably for adding your own customised packages to the installation. Back in the SuSE Server Setup section we describe how to add your own customised packages to your install server. Here, we describe how to access those packages using the configuration file so they can be automatically installed with the rest of the system.
You should be able to locate a <software> section in your basic
configuration file in your editor. You can use a sub-tag inside the software
section called the <extra_packages> tag which can be used as in
the following example:
<software>
<extra_packages>
<package_location>
custom
</package_location>
<packages config:type="list">
<package>{Your package name}</package>
<package>{Another Package}</package>
</packages>
<extra_packages>
<base>Default<base>
<software>
The package location is written as custom which describes the directory
under the suse directory of you install server where you have put your
custom packages, in our example this would be /install/suse/custom,
but you only need to write custom here.
You can include as many package tags under the packages
section as you wish. Use one package tag for each custom package you
want to include in your config file and install on the client machine.
The base tag at the bottom should be left as you configured it during
the basic configuration.
Save your modified configuration file from your text editor and it will then be ready to use in your installations as described below.
There are different situations during a network installation boot of one of your client systems that might mean that you wish to boot in one of the ways below. NOTE: you only need use one of the methods described for the particular usage for which it has been described.
If you skipped over the section above about creating AutoYaST config files then this is the way in which you should boot your client machines.
If you followed the section above about creating AutoYaST config files then this is the way in which you should boot your client machines.
Insert and mount a floppy disk cp /var/lib/autoinstall/repository/Your-File /dev/fd0/autoinst.xml Unmount the floppy disk
linux autoyast=floppy
This is an extension to the technique used to boot client machines for Automatic Installations as described above. You should try this method if you have tried and failed with the method above. This section should help you if you have had network connection problems during boot, for example, if you do not have a DHCP server on your network.
You can create what we call an "info" file to hold information about your clients network details. This can then be used more explicitly by the install process to contact your network. This is a plain text file in which you put certain keyword and value combinations that are recognised by the installer.
The list of keywords you can use is as follows:
Using the above keywords in an example info file, you might end up with something looking a little bit like this:
install: nfs://10.0.0.100/install/SuSE8.0 netdevice: eth0 server: 10.0.0.100 serverdir: /install/SuSE8.0 ip: 10.0.0.200 netmask: 255.0.0.0 gateway: 10.0.0.1 nameserver: 10.0.0.2 autoyast: floppy
Substitute the IP addresses above for relevant ones for your particular network
and save this file with filename info in the root directory of your
floppy disk that contains your configuration file autoinst.xml