UbuntuIRC / 2008 /01 /11 /#ubuntu-installer.txt
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[00:22] <CIA-8> debian-installer: cjwatson * r868 ubuntu/ (build/config/powerpc.cfg debian/changelog):
[00:22] <CIA-8> debian-installer: * Drop powerpc/cell subarchitecture at least for now, as the kernel no
[00:22] <CIA-8> debian-installer: longer builds it.
[00:32] <CIA-8> console-setup: cjwatson * r39 ubuntu/debian/changelog: releasing version 1.19ubuntu2
[01:11] <evand> :q
[01:11] <evand> whoops
[01:44] <twb> I'm trying to do "d-i preseed/include string common.cfg" to put common bits (like the locale) across Gutsy and Etch in a separate .cfg file.
[01:44] <twb> d-i fails to fetch common.cfg, is it because after setting mirror/http/proxy it uses the proxy for the preseed files, too?
[01:47] <twb> newsflash! It does use the proxy
[01:48] <twb> Can I use d-i apt-setup/something to set the proxy *only* for apt-get, (well, and anna-install)?
[01:48] <twb> Or, can I set a no_proxy variable?
[09:21] <Le_Vert_> hi :)
[10:10] <Le_Vert_> okay :)
[10:10] <Le_Vert_> I managed to start ubuntu 7.10 by pxe / nf
[10:10] <Le_Vert_> nfs
[10:11] <Le_Vert_> all what's needed is to disable network manager launch by dbus
[10:11] <Le_Vert_> because it causes network connection reset
[10:11] <Le_Vert_> and thus, break the /
[10:18] <Le_Vert_> but there's still something I don't like
[10:18] <Le_Vert_> with the livecd, I get a gnome session
[10:18] <Le_Vert_> with the pxe/nfs boot, I get gdm login screen
[10:19] <Le_Vert_> do you know what's the problem could be ?
[10:20] <cjwatson> are you sure it's set up a tmpfs correctly?
[10:20] <cjwatson> the code that sets up autologin doesn't look like it should care whether it's booting from CD or net
[10:20] <Le_Vert_> tmpfs for what ?
[10:20] <cjwatson> but it will need to write to /etc/gdm/gdm.conf ...
[10:21] <cjwatson> as in, the root filesystem should have ended up as a unionfs containing the read-only squashfs plus a writable tmpfs
[10:21] <Le_Vert_> yes... that's not the case
[10:21] <Le_Vert_> here is how it works for now
[10:22] <Le_Vert_> boot with root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=/path/to/squash/nfs/export ip=dhcp
[10:22] <Le_Vert_> so casper is not used at all
[10:22] <Le_Vert_> so now unionfs
[10:22] <cjwatson> well that won't work
[10:22] <cjwatson> you have to have casper involved :)
[10:22] <Le_Vert_> I guess I'll have to do this by hand
[10:23] <cjwatson> it's not possible to boot an Ubuntu live session without either casper or a reinvention of casper
[10:23] <Le_Vert_> mmmh
[10:23] <Le_Vert_> so what's the right way ?
[10:23] <Le_Vert_> find something a casper'ized initrd ?
[10:23] <cjwatson> well, I sketched it yesterday
[10:23] <cjwatson> what went wrong?
[10:24] <Le_Vert_> dunno, I'm trying to figure out how to use casper for now :p
[10:24] <cjwatson> you should be using /casper/vmlinuz and /casper/initrd.gz from the live CD as the starting point
[10:25] <Le_Vert_> replace ubuntu stock kernel by the livecd one
[10:25] <cjwatson> and pass NETBOOT=nfs NFSROOT=server:/path on the kernel command line
[10:25] * Le_Vert_ 's giving a try
[10:25] <cjwatson> what's to replace? they're the same
[10:25] <cjwatson> it's the initrd that's special
[10:25] <Le_Vert_> yes and I'm not using the right one :)
[10:25] <Le_Vert_> my kernel/initrd are not using casper at all
[10:25] <cjwatson> like I say, I'm sure the above won't be perfect and there'll be some things to fix, but it's the way to start
[10:25] <Le_Vert_> so I'll just replace them by the livecd one and check if it works better
[10:26] <cjwatson> ah, well that would be a problem yes :)
[10:27] <cjwatson> casper isn't particularly deep magic or anything, but it does do stuff like creating a live session user, setting up autologin, disabling some stuff that doesn't make sense in a live session ...
[10:28] <cjwatson> if you're netbooting, casper will put a 'static' entry in /etc/network/interfaces, which should have the effect of disabling network-manager
[10:28] <cjwatson> s/static/manual
[10:30] <Le_Vert_> that worked better with the ubuntu stock kernel :p
[10:31] <Le_Vert_> initrd doesn't initiliaze the network card
[10:32] <cjwatson> my point is not that this will work directly but that once you get it working you will not have stupid niggling issues like network-manager and autologin
[10:32] <cjwatson> and again, the kernels are bit-for-bit identical
[10:33] <cjwatson> hmm, it seems to try to use busybox ipconfig
[10:33] <cjwatson> is the network device there at all and just not being DHCPed, or is it totally missing (e.g. relevant kernel module not loaded)?
[10:33] <Le_Vert_> eth0: linkup
[10:34] <Le_Vert_> then drop me to a busybox initrd shell
[10:34] <Le_Vert_> (no /sbin/init)
[10:34] <Le_Vert_> can't see and dhcp request
[10:34] <cjwatson> what happens if you do 'ipconfig eth0' from there?
[10:34] <cjwatson> actually, first, what's in /netboot.config?
[10:34] <Le_Vert_> err that's strange
[10:34] <Le_Vert_> ifconfig show me eth0 is okay
[10:34] <cjwatson> ipconfig
[10:35] <cjwatson> that was NOT a typo
[10:35] <Le_Vert_> and even mount show nfsroot has been mounted to /root/cdrom
[10:35] <cjwatson> hmm, ok
[10:35] <cjwatson> /casper.log please?
[10:35] <Le_Vert_> (and I can read /root/cdrom)
[10:35] <cjwatson> ok, so that's a good start
[10:36] <Le_Vert_> full of no such file or directory
[10:36] <Le_Vert_> (casper.log)
[10:41] <Le_Vert_> got it :)
[10:42] <Le_Vert_> got it
[10:42] <Le_Vert_> !!
[10:42] <Le_Vert_> :)
[10:43] <Le_Vert_> You really want to export the iso mounted, not the squashfs image
[10:54] <cjwatson> sorry, had to clean up after the dog (don't ask)
[10:54] <cjwatson> yes, you're quite right - sorry about that, my mistake :-/
[11:04] <Le_Vert_> no problem
[11:04] <Le_Vert_> you ware really nice to help me through this success :)
[11:23] <cjwatson> wow, did it just work after that?
[11:24] <cjwatson> I've created https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveCDNetboot as a starting point for documenting this
[12:44] <Le_Vert_> yes cjwatson
[12:44] <Le_Vert_> it does work :)
[12:44] <Le_Vert_> I just made an initial pressed config based on evand one
[12:45] <Le_Vert_> ps: no need to copy, mounting the iso as loop is enough
[12:45] <Le_Vert_> you have to pass boot=casper too
[12:45] <Le_Vert_> (kernel parameter)
[12:47] <Le_Vert_> however ubiquity failed (partman broke)
[12:47] <cjwatson> ok, made those changes. I think for some people copying will be more convenient as then they won't have to arrange for the ISO to be loop-mounted on every boot
[12:48] <Le_Vert_> are you sure ubiquity can be partially presseded ?
[12:48] <cjwatson> (direct loop-mounting is less worrying if squashfs isn't involved)
[12:48] <cjwatson> Le_Vert_: please show me (a) preseed file with passwords removed (b) /var/log/syslog
[12:49] <cjwatson> yes, I am sure it can be partially preseeded; but not all combinations will necessarily work :-) and you might be running into some other problem
[12:49] <Le_Vert_> http://paste.ubuntu.com/3472/
[12:49] <Le_Vert_> (ps: you can add quiet slash as kernel parameters too ;))
[12:49] <cjwatson> slash?
[12:49] <cjwatson> oh, splash
[12:49] <Le_Vert_> this presseed file is supposed to do everything, except disk partitionning and user account creation
[12:50] <Le_Vert_> (yes splash, sorry)
[12:50] <Le_Vert_> (and I guess root should be exported with no_root_squash)
[12:50] <Le_Vert_> (I didn't give a try without this option but I bet it will fail)
[12:51] <cjwatson> yeah
[12:52] <cjwatson> preseed file looks fine, need syslog
[12:52] <Le_Vert_> yep but I can't get a shell :D
[12:53] <Le_Vert_> I'm pretty sure ctrl+alt+fX in vmware is ctrl+fX or alt+fX
[12:53] <Le_Vert_> but none drop me to a console tty
[12:53] <Le_Vert_> :/
[12:53] <cjwatson> ctrl-alt-shift-f1
[12:53] <cjwatson> or ctrl-alt-space ctrl-alt-f1
[12:54] <Le_Vert_> err I'm so stupid sometimes
[12:54] <Le_Vert_> syslog on the way....
[12:54] <cjwatson> alternatively, cancelling the installer should drop you into a normal session
[12:55] <Le_Vert_> it doesn't
[12:55] <Le_Vert_> (probably because of auto-ubiquity kernel parameter)
[12:56] <cjwatson> for testing purposes I'd advise launching the installer manually from a shell
[12:56] <cjwatson> it'll get rather tedious otherwise
[12:56] <cjwatson> ubiquity --automatic
[12:57] <Le_Vert_> http://paste.ubuntu.com/3474/
[12:57] <Le_Vert_> looks like being a floppy issue
[12:58] <Le_Vert_> but none is defined in the vmware virtual computer
[12:58] <cjwatson> red herring
[12:58] <Le_Vert_> ?
[12:59] <cjwatson> not a floppy issue, that just happens to be adjacent in the logs
[12:59] <cjwatson> hmm
[13:00] <Le_Vert_> File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtk_ui.py", line 1122, in watch_debconf_fd_helper < fd_helper = floopy disk helper ?
[13:00] <cjwatson> could you run parted and see if it recognises the disk?
[13:00] <cjwatson> fd => file descriptor. Forget about floppies. They are not relevant to this.
[13:00] <Le_Vert_> okay :)
[13:01] <cjwatson> (you might need to run parted as root to let it poke at partition tables)
[13:02] <Le_Vert_> parted read the disk successfully
[13:02] <Le_Vert_> it's a debian etch installation on it
[13:02] <Le_Vert_> with ext3/swap/xfs filesystems
[13:02] <Le_Vert_> fdisk read it too
[13:03] <cjwatson> ok, could you reboot without auto-ubiquity, run 'ubiquity --automatic --debug' from a shell, reproduce, and get /var/log/installer/debug?
[13:03] <Le_Vert_> off course I do ;)
[13:03] <Le_Vert_> minute...
[13:04] <Le_Vert_> another feature request...
[13:04] <Le_Vert_> could you please add console-data into the cd root ?
[13:04] <Le_Vert_> that would be really great if azerty keyboard owner could use loadkeys :p
[13:05] <cjwatson> console-data is obsolete
[13:05] <cjwatson> (in Ubuntu)
[13:05] <cjwatson> bug 83487 is scheduled to be fixed in hardy
[13:05] <ubotu> Launchpad bug 83487 in console-setup "old-style loadkeys invocations no longer work" [Low,Confirmed] https://launchpad.net/bugs/83487
[13:06] <Le_Vert_> okay :)
[13:06] <cjwatson> I'd suggest putting console-setup/layoutcode=fr on the kernel command line for the time being
[13:07] <Le_Vert_> okay :)
[13:07] <Le_Vert_> starting ubiquity in debug mode....
[13:10] <Le_Vert_> http://www.le-vert.net/divers/debug
[13:16] <Le_Vert_> no clue ?
[13:17] <cjwatson> evand: ^-- looks like the seen flag hack has some problems with partman - maybe we need to avoid questions being accidentally marked as seen when they're never presented to the user?
[13:17] <cjwatson> Le_Vert_: right, while partial preseeding should *in general* work, looks like it has some problems in this specific case
[13:18] <Le_Vert_> sounds bad
[13:18] <Le_Vert_> I may pressed the question as not seed ?
[13:18] <Le_Vert_> s/seed/seen/
[13:18] <cjwatson> no, it's getting marked that way due to internal actions
[13:20] <Le_Vert_> but that internal process may be overriden by a user preseed ?
[13:22] <cjwatson> no
[13:23] <cjwatson> it's a bg
[13:23] <cjwatson> bug
[13:23] <cjwatson> ubiquity uses d-i as much as possible in order to reduce the amount of code duplication involved
[13:24] <cjwatson> but the UI models are quite different, and resolving those differences can be difficult in some places
[13:24] <cjwatson> this is one of those places
[13:24] <Le_Vert_> okay....
[13:25] <Le_Vert_> so no preseed
[13:25] <Le_Vert_> or all preseed
[13:27] <Le_Vert_> could you please report this bug and add me as 'cc' ?
[13:27] <Le_Vert_> gandalf@le-vert.net
[13:29] <cjwatson> I think things other than partitioning should work OK if partially preseeded
[13:29] <cjwatson> it's just that the partitioner is weird, as always :-/
[13:29] <cjwatson> you're launchpad.net/~gandalf-le-vert?
[13:29] <Le_Vert_> yes
[13:30] <Le_Vert_> I never created an account there
[13:30] <Le_Vert_> I think it got imported from debian
[13:30] <Le_Vert_> cause I have some packages there :)
[13:30] <cjwatson> :-)
[13:34] <Le_Vert_> i'm not really aware of the ubuntu specific stuff
[13:34] <Le_Vert_> like launchpad and ubiquity
[13:34] <Le_Vert_> that's why I think you'll be a really better bug reporter ;)
[13:37] <cjwatson> bug 182004
[13:37] <ubotu> Launchpad bug 182004 in ubiquity "partitioner fails if partially preseeded due to seen flag madness" [Undecided,New] https://launchpad.net/bugs/182004
[13:57] <Le_Vert_> thanks :)
[13:57] <Le_Vert_> I'll just have to wait that evand fix this bug :p
[14:22] <evand> hooray. I'll look into it after I release a new ubiquity. cjwatson, do you mind if I release a new oem-config as well?
[14:27] <cjwatson> go ahead
[14:27] <evand> ok
[14:37] <CIA-8> ubiquity: evand * r2403 ubiquity/ (d-i/manifest debian/changelog):
[14:37] <CIA-8> ubiquity: * Automatic update of included source packages: console-setup
[14:37] <CIA-8> ubiquity: 1.19ubuntu2, partman-auto-loop 0ubuntu12.
[14:51] <Le_Vert_> evand: do you think the fix will be backportable to 7.10 ?
[14:53] <evand> We don't backport new releases of ubiquity, but I suspect the patch will apply cleanly to 7.10.
[14:56] <Le_Vert_> okay...
[14:56] <CIA-8> ubiquity: evand * r2404 ubiquity/debian/changelog: releasing version 1.7.3
[14:56] <Le_Vert_> then I'll backport the fix to ubiquity package or just apply the diff against the ubiquity binary directly :)
[14:57] <Le_Vert_> I'll see
[14:58] <evand> To clarify, we don't make new releases of ubiquity for older versions of Ubuntu because nothing updates the installer from the archive before running, nor do we release new CDs (LTS aside).
[14:58] <evand> But yes, I imagine it wont be hard to give you an updated deb.
[14:58] <evand> Sorry about the lack of clarity on that.
[14:59] <Le_Vert_> that sounds great ;)
[15:00] <Le_Vert_> any estimated ETA for the fix ?
[15:00] <Le_Vert_> I'd go ahead with that project asap ;)
[15:00] <evand> honestly, no idea. I've read through your conversation with cjwatson, but I have not had a chance to take a hard look at the problem yet.
[15:02] <Le_Vert_> just boot the ubiquity with the preseed file attached, and the bug will appear :)
[15:03] <evand> heh, indeed
[15:03] <Le_Vert_> anyway, thanks a lot to all d-i team for your help :)
[15:05] <evand> you're welcome
[15:42] <CIA-8> ubiquity: evand * r2405 ubiquity/ (configure configure.ac): bump to 1.7.4
[16:00] <CIA-8> oem-config: evand * r394 oem-config/ (aclocal.m4 d-i/manifest debian/changelog):
[16:00] <CIA-8> oem-config: * Automatic update of included source packages: console-setup
[16:00] <CIA-8> oem-config: 1.19ubuntu2.
[16:12] <CIA-8> oem-config: evand * r395 oem-config/debian/changelog: releasing version 1.25
[16:23] <evand> uh oh
[16:25] <cjwatson> ?
[16:25] <evand> cjwatson: I missed that configure{|.ac} was at 1.24 and didn't bump it to 1.25 with that upload. I'm not sure what the correct path is here. Should I just upload 1.26 with the correct versioning?
[16:25] <cjwatson> it's not critically important
[16:25] <cjwatson> just bump it in bzr
[16:25] <evand> ok
[16:25] <cjwatson> I imagine nobody else will notice
[16:26] <cjwatson> it just affects --help and --version, possibly even only for ./configure
[16:26] <evand> ah, fantastic
[16:26] <cjwatson> I'd actually prefer autoconf to suck it out of debian/changelog automatically, and I did try to implement that once, but it wasn't working very well
[16:26] <cjwatson> I might try it again at some point
[16:31] <evand> hm, that would be quite neat
[16:34] <CIA-8> oem-config: evand * r396 oem-config/ (configure configure.ac): Bump to 1.26
[17:44] <xivulon> evand hi
[17:44] <xivulon> evand hi
[17:44] <evand> hi xivulon
[17:44] <xivulon> did you have any chance to start tackling the patches?
[17:45] <evand> xivulon: I looked them over and they appear to be fine. I'll start merging them in today.
[17:46] <xivulon> I'll try to be on chat/jabber in case you have question
[17:46] <xivulon> s
[17:47] <xivulon> a few upstream patches are duplicated in lupin-support
[17:47] <evand> ok. Worst case scenario, if I can't reach you and have a question, I'll just email you and hold off on that particular patch.
[17:47] <evand> oh, you needed this by the weekend though, right?
[17:47] <xivulon> that will need to be cleaned up, after the first round of marges
[17:47] <xivulon> ideally yes, so I can try to play with wubi over the w/e
[17:48] <evand> ok
[17:48] <xivulon> thanks a lot
[17:49] <evand> you're welcome
[17:53] <xivulon> To make things easier you can work in this order
[17:53] <xivulon> 1) merge ~ago/partman-auto-loop/lupin-support with partman-auto-loop
[17:53] <xivulon> that takes care of 4 separate bug reports
[17:54] <xivulon> 2) use the new lupin/hardy branch (no need to spend too much time over lupin-support since that will be put on diet)
[17:55] <xivulon> that affects 2 packages lupin/casper and lupin-support
[17:57] <xivulon> 3) grub patches: 181658 175772
[17:58] <xivulon> 4) init.d patches 151579 181669
[17:59] <xivulon> 5) poke mjg59 over 176112
[18:00] <xivulon> 6) poke steve over 140458
[18:00] <cjwatson> ROOTFSTYPE and LOOPFSTYPE would be set if those options were passed.
[18:00] <cjwatson> but it seems reasonable to do the pidofs regardless. I've reassigned that bug to the correct package.
[18:01] <xivulon> thanks
[18:01] <cjwatson> I really doubt 176112 is going to happen. I think you get to live with suspend-to-ram not working
[18:01] <cjwatson> at least I wouldn't rely on it being fixed
[18:01] <xivulon> :(
[18:02] <xivulon> my guess is that there is a similar situation to the one we fixed with sendsigs.omit
[18:03] <xivulon> whereby fuse/ntfs-3g are stopped too early
[18:03] <cjwatson> suspending to RAM doesn't unmount filesystems or kill processes
[18:04] <xivulon> do not know how it works internally, but I guess it must somehow freeze current processes to get a memory snapshot
[18:05] <cjwatson> (well, it kills *some* processes like dhclient, but not these ones)
[18:08] <cjwatson> suspend-to-RAM doesn't take a memory snapshot
[18:08] <cjwatson> it turns off devices and puts the CPU into a low-power state
[18:08] <cjwatson> you're thinking of suspend-to-disk (a.k.a. hibernate)
[18:10] <xivulon> you are right
[18:10] <xivulon> you are right
[18:11] <evand> which mjg59 seems to think is broken anyway
[18:12] <xivulon> I thought I remembered something matthew said about the "ordering" with which things were processed
[18:12] <xivulon> hibernation has additional problems, in that on top of fuse, has to work with swap on a file
[19:31] <evand> cjwatson: Do you have any thoughts on bug 177868? Specifically, I'm concerned about having to pull in a format script for every filesystem we want to work with. Then again, I don't see that being much of a problem as we only really care about ext3.
[19:31] <ubotu> Launchpad bug 177868 in wubi "When loopfiles are used mkfs has to target the file and not the containing device" [Low,Fix committed] https://launchpad.net/bugs/177868
[19:36] <cjwatson> evand: I think unfortunately we are going to have to modify all the partman-* filesystem implementations; it's annoying but hard to avoid
[19:37] <cjwatson> evand: the patch there is wrong though
[19:37] <cjwatson> evand: there's no reason to run losetup; the loop device is saved in the 'loop' file mentioned there precisely so that things that partman-ext3 can get at it
[19:37] <cjwatson> so it should just check for the loop file and use its contents
[19:38] <evand> yeah, I thought the first bit might be an option, but I wasn't sure if you wanted to keep them clean of this.
[19:38] <evand> ok
[19:38] <cjwatson> preferably, it should arrange to set $device to the loop device name so that you don't have to duplicate the mkfs.ext3 code
[19:39] <cjwatson> I *want* to keep them clean of this, but I'm not sure we can :-/
[19:39] <evand> heh
[19:39] <evand> indeed
[19:39] <cjwatson> having the filesystem implementations out of sync in that kind of way is bad mojo
[19:39] <evand> yeah, I figured as much
[21:19] <evand> cjwatson: if you have a free moment, can you give this a quick look over: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/3488/ . Always forcing isn't going to break some case that I haven't considered, will it?
[21:21] <evand> hm, that's a silly question. Nevermind then.
[21:25] <cjwatson> evand: I *think* that's OK, but if you're worried, you could do force=-F inside the first if and then pass $force (without double-quotes) to mkfs.ext3
[21:26] <evand> ah, good point
[21:33] <evand> ugh, I just made a mess by not realizing that we had synced the last few versions of partman-ext3
[21:33] * evand goes to unbreak things
[21:52] <xivulon> do you prefer that I clean-up lupin-support now?
[21:53] <xivulon> since it contains some of the upstream-patches
[21:56] <evand> sure, if you so desire.
[22:43] <xivulon> done but cannot connect to launchpad
[23:02] <ago> evand lupin/hardy rev 79
[23:18] <evand> ok, thanks