No root password on install clients, problem with installing kernel, fai-chboot problems

[Daniel Hamilton]

Hi all ... just a few problems I'm having with my FAI installation ;)
Sorry if this is rather long ... but I'm new to FAI and fairly new to
Debian!


PROBLEM 1:

Firstly, my installation goes pretty much as planned ... all clients
boot via PXE/DHCP process and the basic install goes OK.However, when I
try to install my new kernel (via a script) I get an error message from
apt saying:

E: Couldn't find package kernel-image-...i386.deb


The kernel package is in /usr/local/share/fai/files/packages along with
a Packages.gz file created with 
 
# cd /usr/local/share/fai/files
# dpkg-scanpackages packages /dev/null | gzip -9 > packages/Packages.gz

as per the instructions in the FAI manual.

The relevant portion of my BEOWULF.var file is set as follows:

kernelversion=2.4.18
addpackages="kernel-image-2.4.18...i386.deb"

and I use the bit of script as below to try and install it

fcopy /etc/kernel-img.conf
[ "$addpackages" ] && yes '' | $ROOTCMD apt-get install $addpackages


Does anyone have any ideas what I've done wrong with this??


PROBLEM 2:

There is no root password for the install clients!! This means that
post-install (and post reboot) I can just type root at the login prompt
and not be asked for a password. Additionally I cannot su if I am logged
in as another user as this keeps prompting me for a password for root!
This problem also makes remote access for root impossible.

I've used the bit of fai.conf as below:

FAI_ROOTPW='56hNVqht51tzc' 

ie the default 'fai' as root passwd. Again if anyone knows what I've
done wrong I would appreciate some pointers 

.... by the way how do you generate your own encrypted password??


PROBLEM 3:

After all has been installed (note that I have installed the new kernel
manually for the minute by #chroot $target dpkg -i
/fai/files/packages/kernel-image... ) if I 

#fai-chboot -v vmlinuz /dev/hda3 "hostname" 

I get the message: vmlinuz not found when I try and reboot "hostname".
The kernel is installed to /boot which is on a seperate partition
(/dev/hda1). The / partition is /dev/hda3.

Again what have I done wrong? ... I really really don't want to have to
change all the BIOS settings manually!!

Any help would be greatly appreciated
Many thanks

DAN