And of course when I reply from my phone I forget the list.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Michael Hudson-Doyle" <michael.hudson@canonical.com>
Date: 27 May 2014 22:12
Subject: Re: [Linaro-validation] using debian-installer and preseeds to deploy in lava
To: "Neil Williams" <codehelp@debian.org>
Cc:


On 27 May 2014 20:37, "Neil Williams" <codehelp@debian.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 27 May 2014 15:00:07 +1200
> Michael Hudson-Doyle <michael.hudson@linaro.org> wrote:
>
> > For reasons that probably aren't especially good[1] I've been poking a
> > bit today at using a preseeded debian-installer to get an image onto a
> > LAVA system.  It turns out to be mostly possible, with a job like
> > this:
> >
> >     http://paste.ubuntu.com/7526204/
> >
> > and a preseed like this:
> >
> >     http://paste.ubuntu.com/7526152/
> >
> > but there is a hard coded timeout on boot_linaro_image of 5 minutes,
> > which is not long enough for d-i to run.  Oh well!
>
> :-(
>
> How far did the install get? Is it just a case of saving a few seconds
> on downloads or doubling the timeout?

More the latter, I think. I haven't timed it, but I think it takes about 15 mins.

> Maybe skip the openssh-server tasksel and install that as a separate
> action after the install has booted?

Yes, that's a good idea. I'll try tomorrow.

> ports.ubuntu.com is often *really* slow - a local mirror of that will be
> a lot more useful, both for the archive and the installer image.

I don't think that's a huge part of the issue here – when I (unpreseededly) d-i-ed some mustangs last week, the first wasn't much slower than the rest (which presumably got most things from squid).

> > So I guess I have two questions really:
> >
> >  1) Would it be possible to override this timeout?  I.e. add a
> > timeout= parameter to boot_linaro_image?
>
> There's no support for that right now - it may be better to have a
> install_image action added to the list of elements for the upcoming
> sprint.
>
> >  2) Is there any sense in LAVA supporting d-i as a deployment
> > method?  I guess the dispatcher could even handle generating the
> > preseed for you, at least mostly.
>
> Yes, the dispatcher certainly could handle the pre-seeding of debconf
> for d-i and for other package installs, using parameters where
> required. It would be a different kind of deployment with custom
> deployment data based on the underlying OS.
>
> A separate action would be the best way to implement that.

Oh yes, a separate action is definitely the Right Thing™.

Cheers,
mwh
(Phone reply, apologies for typos)

> --
>
>
> Neil Williams
> =============
> http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
>
>
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