Chapter 4. Configuration and Installation Options

This chapter introduces important parts of a control file for standard purposes. To have an idea about the other options available, use the configuration management system.

Note that for some of the configuration options to work, additional packages have to be installed, depending on the software selection you have configured. If you choose to install Minimal then some packages might be missing and those have to be added to the individual package selection.

YaST will install packages required by YaST modules in the second phase of the installation and before the post-installation phase of AutoYaST has started, however if the YaST modules are not available in the system, this will not happen. For example, no security settings will be configured if yast2-security is not installed.

4.1. General Options

General options include all the settings related to the installation process and the environment of the installed system.

Example 4.1. General Options

The mode section configures the behavior of AutoYaST when it comes to confirmation and rebooting. The following has to be in the <general><mode> section

By default, the auto-installation process has to be confirmed by the user. The confirmation should be disabled if a fully unattended installation is desired. This option is used to view and change the settings on a target system before anything is committed and can be used for debugging. It is set to true by default to avoid recursive installs when the system schedules a reboot after initial system setup.

With halt you make autoyast to turn off the machine after all packages have been installed. So instead of the reboot into stage two, the machine is turned off. The bootloader is alreay installed and all your chroot scripts have run.

final_halt and final_reboot are new with openSUSE 11.0 and SLES11. You can reboot or halt the machine, when everything with installation and configuration is done, with that.

openSUSE 11.0 uses the kexec feature and does not reboot anymore between stage1 and stage2. With the forceboot option you can force the reboot in case you need it for some reason. true will reboot, false will not reboot and a missing forceboot option uses the products default.

Table 4.1.

Attribute	Values	Description
confirm	if this boolean is set to "true" the installation stops at the confirmation screen (also called proposal screen) and has to be confirmed with the "install"-button. <confirm config:type="boolean">true</confirm>	optional. The default is true
halt	shut down the machine after the first stage. So if you turn it on again, the machine boots and the second stage of the autoinstallation starts <halt config:type="boolean">true</halt>	optional. The default is false
second_stage	this boolean configures if AutoYaST will run in the second stage too (after the partitioning, software and bootloader installation of the first stage). If you set this to false, a normal manual installation happens in the second stage. <second_stage config:type="boolean">true</second_stage>	optional. The default is true
final_reboot	if you set this to true, the machine will reboot at the very end of the installation (when everything is installed and configured at the end of the second stage) <final_reboot config:type="boolean">true</final_reboot>	optional. The default is false. It makes no sense to set this and final_halt to true. This options is available since openSUSE 11.0 and SLES11
final_halt	if you set this to true, the machine will shutdown at the very end of the installation (when everything is installed and configured at the end of the second stage) <final_halt config:type="boolean">true</final_halt>	optional. The default is false. It makes no sense to set this and final_reboot to true. This options is available since openSUSE 11.0 and SLES11
forceboot	Some openSUSE releases use kexec to avoid the reboot after the first stage. They immediately boot into the installed system. You can force a reboot with this <forceboot config:type="boolean">true</forceboot>	optional. The default is false.

  

    <general>
      <signature-handling>
        <accept_unsigned_file         config:type="boolean">true</accept_unsigned_file>
        <accept_file_without_checksum config:type="boolean">true</accept_file_without_checksum>
        <accept_verification_failed   config:type="boolean">true</accept_verification_failed>
        <accept_unknown_gpg_key       config:type="boolean">true</accept_unknown_gpg_key>
        <import_gpg_key               config:type="boolean">true</import_gpg_key>
        <accept_non_trusted_gpg_key   config:type="boolean">true</accept_non_trusted_gpg_key>
      </signature-handling>
      <mode>
        <halt config:type="boolean">false</halt>
        <forceboot config:type="boolean">false</forceboot>     <! -- since 11.0 -->
        <final_reboot config:type="boolean">false</final_reboot>   <! -- since 11.0 -->
        <final_halt config:type="boolean">false</final_halt>       <! -- since 11.0 -->
        <confirm config:type="boolean">true</confirm>
        <second_stage config:type="boolean">true</second_stage>
      </mode>
      <proposals config:type="list">        <!-- since 11.1 -->
        <proposal>partitions_proposal</proposal>
      </proposals>
      <wait>  <!-- since 11.1 / SLES11 -->
          <pre-modules config:type="list">
              <module>
                  <name>networking</name>
                  <sleep>
                      <time config:type="integer">10</time>
                      <feedback config:type="boolean">true</feedback>
                  </sleep>
                  <script>
                      <source>
                          sleep 5
                      </source>
                      <debug config:type="boolean">false</debug>
                  </script>
              </module>
          </pre-modules>
          <post-modules config:type="list">
              <module>
                  <name>networking</name>
                  <sleep>
                      <time config:type="integer">3</time>
                      <feedback config:type="boolean">true</feedback>
                  </sleep>
                  <script>
                      <source>
                          sleep 7
                      </source>
                      <debug config:type="boolean">false</debug>
                  </script>
              </module>
          </post-modules>
      </wait>

      <!-- the storage section was invented with openSUSE 11.3 (not SLES11 SP1) -->
      <storage>
        <!--
            partition_alignment:

            `align_optimal  - That's the default. Partitions are aligned like the kernel suggests.
                              This can lead to problem with some machines/bioses that are unable to boot with that
                              alignment
            `align_cylinder - that's the alignment like it was in pre-openSUSE 11.3 time for years. Partitions
                              always start on a cylinder boundary
        -->
        <partition_alignment config:type="symbol">align_cylinder</partition_alignment>
      </storage>

    </general>

AutoYaST in openSUSE 11.1 allows you to configure the proposal screen with the <proposals config:type="list"> option in the profile. All proposals that are listed in that section are shown in the proposal screen if you set the confirm option to true.

This is the list of proposals for openSUSE 11.1 are (you can find that in the control.xml on the installation source too):

partitions_proposal
bootloader_proposal
country_simple_proposal
timezone_proposal
users_proposal
hwinfo_proposal
mouse_proposal
software_proposal
runlevel_proposal
deploying_proposal

The wait section was invented with openSUSE 11.1 and SLES11. You can let AutoYaST sleep before and after each module during the second stage. You can run scripts and/or you can pass a value (in seconds) for AutoYaST to sleep. In the example above AutoYaST will sleep for 15 seconds (10+5) before the network configuration happens and 10 seconds (3+7) after the network configuration is done. The scripts in the example don't really make a lot of sense because you could pass that value as "time" value too but I think you get how scripts in the wait section work now.

	Change starting from SUSE Linux 10.1/SLES10
The language, keyboard and clock properties in the general resource were moved to the root (profile) element of the autoyast profile. So don't use them in the general section anymore. Since now you can use the second_stage property, which can turn off autoyast after the first reboot. So the complete second stage is a manual installation (default is true, which means that autoyast is doing a complete installation). Since openSUSE 11.0 you can set the boolean final_reboot and final_halt to reboot/turn off the machine at the end of stage two. For the signature-handling, please read the Software chapter of this documentation.

Change starting from SUSE Linux 10.1/SLES10

The language, keyboard and clock properties in the general resource were moved to the root (profile) element of the autoyast profile. So don't use them in the general section anymore.

Since now you can use the second_stage property, which can turn off autoyast after the first reboot. So the complete second stage is a manual installation (default is true, which means that autoyast is doing a complete installation). Since openSUSE 11.0 you can set the boolean final_reboot and final_halt to reboot/turn off the machine at the end of stage two.

For the signature-handling, please read the Software chapter of this documentation.


3.4. Creating a Profile (control file) via Script with XSLT		4.2. Reporting