fai newsletter

[Thomas Lange]

First of all I want to thank all people (especially Thomas Gebhardt
<gebhardt at hrz.uni-marburg.de> ) for sending a lot of bug reports,
fixes, ideas, enhancements for fai in the past. Below are some short
answers to questions from you all. This is what I have done:
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fai-1.1beta2: june 20, 2000

- script faireboot for easy rebooting
- package_config can now preload a file before installing a package
  (usefull for realplayer, fai,..)
- install_packages called in different ways depending on FAI_FLAGS
  (verbose,debug) for better debugging
- S24 echoes NONIS if no nisdomain is defined
- a "mini howto" on the creation of a FAI Boot Floppy doc/fai-boot-floppy.txt
- allways call the new lilo ${target}/sbin/lilo
- apt-get upgrade before installation of packages
- define_classes is called when FAI_ACTION is sysinfo
- two configuration examples: faiserver and faiclient01
- Class renamed: MAINTAINER -> DEBIAN_DEVEL
- start-stop-daemon is now faked in a better way
- fai.pl renamed to Fai.pm, new location
- use make-fai-nfsroot if you do not want to mount /usr from a server (default)
- some tests which nfs server you are using; only the user space
  nfs-server is supported now
- testsize (Fai.pm) tests if lower < size <= upper
- blocksize of harddisk will now be determined in Fai.pm (not fixed to
  512 bytes)
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S02..pl and S05..pl are now only examples, They are not used.

a second tty could maybe be may using a different /etc/initab or using
getty. Has anyone an idea ?


> it seems that rootpw from S98variables.source superseeds
>  the settings in S98rootpw.source
this is a feature, not a bug. It shows, that variables can be defined
in different ways and config files


>* The BASE script sets mode=a+rw . This is an unsecure default
>  configuration (M$ style)
This is only for /dev/fd0*, the floppy disk. I do not want to put
everybody into the group floppy.


> Currently my workaround is to put a
> "killall atd"
not needed any more




>From now on, you can access all relevant files at

http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/download/

My next projects:

- creating a CVS repository for fai
- making fai an official package
- writing documentation

Please read doc/fai/README.package_problems. Maybe you have other
packages to include into the table. Currently I'm installing using
FAI_FLAGS="verbose", because I can see where apt-get or dpkg fails or
loops. But I have to hit some keys on the keyboard. Changing the list
of packages to install influences the failure of the installation
significant.

-- 
Thomas
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            Thomas Lange
Institut fuer Informatik        mailto:lange at informatik.Uni-Koeln.DE
   Universitaet zu Koeln
            Pohligstr. 1        Telefon: +49 221 470 5303
             50969 Koeln        Fax    : +49 221 470 5317
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