pkgask equivalent?

[Sam Vilain]

Hi all,

I can see from the layout of FAI that it is a blatant rip-off of
JumpStart :-).  Having set up a Jumpstart system for a 100+ host network
myself, I appreciate the time saving that it offers for building many
similar hosts.

However, consider the case where you are performing automated
installations on virtual machines, which have no kernel, and wouldn't
follow the normal jumpstart process (ie, boot off net, partition, install
packages, etc).  I'm building a master base image with `debootstrap', then
copying that to a chroot for the new server.  I then want to run the
equivalent of the JumpStart postinstall script, which will install a
relevant set of packages and configure the server.  It would be nice if I
could integrate the work I'm doing into fai at some point, where
appropriate.  For now I have fairly some simple scripts.

How are you performing the equivalent of `pkgask' - that is how are you
feeding debconf with answers through the installation process?

I've written a simple extension to debconf (see attached patch) that would
allow you to feed debconf by placing the answers in `/etc/debconf/answers'
and then setting DEBIAN_FRONTEND=Managed.  This might be a workable
solution; beats using the `Noninteractive' front-end (which pretty much
guarantees that the wrong answer will be provided).
--
   Sam Vilain, sam at vilain.net     WWW: http://sam.vilain.net/
    7D74 2A09 B2D3 C30F F78E      GPG: http://sam.vilain.net/sam.asc
    278A A425 30A9 05B5 2F13

  Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.
CONFUCIUS
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