<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE autoinstall>
<autoinstall xmlns="http://www.suse.com/1.0/yast2ns" xmlns:config="http://www.suse.com/1.0/configns">
  <rules config:type="list">
    <rule>
       <disksize>
            <match>/dev/hdc 1000</match>
            <match_type>greater</match_type>
       </disksize>
       <result>
            <profile>machine1.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">false</continue>
        </result>
    </rule>
    <rule>
       <disksize>
            <match>/dev/hda 1000</match>
            <match_type>greater</match_type>
       </disksize>
       <result>
            <profile>machine2.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">false</continue>
        </result>
    </rule>
  </rules>
</autoinstall>

	    

The last example defines 2 rules and provides a different profile for every rule. The rule used in this case is disksize. After parsing the rules file, YaST2 attempts to match the system being installed to the rules in the rules.xml file in the following order: first rule through the last rule. A rule match occurs when the system being installed matches all of the system attributes defined in the rule. As soon as a system matches a rule, the result resource is added to the stack of profiles AutoYaST will be using to create the final profile. The continue property tells AutoYaST if it should continue with other rules or not after a match has been found.

If the first rule does not match, next rule in the list is examined until a match is found.

Using the disksize attribute, you can provide different configurations for different hard drives with different size. First rule checks if the device /dev/hdc is available and if it is greater than 1 GB in size using the match property.

A rule must have at least one attribute to be matched. If you need to check more attributes, i.e. memory or architectures, you can add more attributes in the rule resource as shown in the next example.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE autoinstall> 
<autoinstall xmlns="http://www.suse.com/1.0/yast2ns" xmlns:config="http://www.suse.com/1.0/configns">
  <rules config:type="list">
    <rule>
       <disksize>
            <match>/dev/hdc 1000</match>
            <match_type>greater</match_type>
       </disksize>
       <memsize>	    
            <match>1000</match>
            <match_type>greater</match_type>
       </memsize>
       <result>
            <profile>machine1.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">false</continue>
        </result>
    </rule>
    <rule>
       <disksize>
            <match>/dev/hda 1000</match>
            <match_type>greater</match_type>
       </disksize>
       <memsize>	    
            <match>256</match>
            <match_type>greater</match_type>
       </memsize>
       <result>
            <profile>machine2.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">false</continue>
        </result>
    </rule>
  </rules>
</autoinstall>

	

The rules directory must be located in the same referenced directory used with the autoyast keyword on boot time, so if the client was booted using autoyast=http://10.10.0.1/profiles/, AutoYaST will search for the rules file in http://10.10.0.1/profiles/rules/rules.xml.

If the attributes autoyast provides for rules are not enough for you, you can use custom rules. Custom rules are more or less a shell script you have to write has and whose output on STDOUT is being used to know which autoyast profile should be fetched. STDERR will be ignored.

Here is an example for the use of a custom rules:

<rule>
    <custom1>
        <script>
if grep -i intel /proc/cpuinfo > /dev/null; then
echo -n "intel"
else
echo -n "non_intel"
fi;
        </script>
        <match>*</match>
        <match_type>exact</match_type>
    </custom1>
    <result>
         <profile>@custom1@.xml</profile>
         <continue config:type="boolean">true</continue>
    </result>
</rule>

            

The script in this rule can echo either "intel" or "non_intel" to STDOUT (the output of the grep command must be directed to /dev/null in this case). Autoyast will catch that output and will fetch a file with the name "intel.xml" or "non_intel.xml". This file can contain the autoyast profile part for the software selection for example, in the case you want to do a different software selection on intel hardware than on others. So the output of the rule script will be filled between the two '@' characters, to determine the filename of the profile to fetch.

The number of custom rules is limited to 5. So you can use custom1 to custom5.

you can have five different match_types:

"greater" and "lower" can be used for memsize or totaldisk for example. They can match only on rules which return an integer value. A range is only possible for integer values too and has the form of "value1-value2", for example "512-1024". regex can be used to match substrings like "ntel" will match "Intel","intel" and "intelligent".

It's possible to combine multiple attributes via a logical operator. So it's possible to let a rule match if disksize is greater than 1GB or memsize is exact 512MB (well, not the best example maybe).

You can do that with the "operator" element in the rules.xml file. Here is an example:

<rule>
   <disksize>
        <match>/dev/hda 1000</match>
        <match_type>greater</match_type>
   </disksize>
   <memsize>	    
        <match>256</match>
        <match_type>greater</match_type>
   </memsize>
   <result>
        <profile>machine2.xml</profile>
        <continue config:type="boolean">false</continue>
   </result>
   <operator>or</operator>
</rule>

        

Just "and" and "or" are possible operators and the default operator is "and".

The rules.xml file must have:

The following table lists the predefined system attributes you can match in the rules file.

If you are unsure about a value on your system, start an autoinstallation. If the proposal shows up, switch to the console via CTRL+ALT+F2 and run

/usr/lib/YaST2/bin/y2base ayast_probe ncurses
      

. It might help to to turn the confirmation on for this, so that the installation does not start in the background while you are watching the values. The textbox with the values is scrollable.

Since openSUSE 11.3 (not SLES11 SP1) you can use dialog popups where you can select which rules you want to match and which not by checkboxes.

The following elements must be between the <rules config:type="list"><rule><dialog> ... </dialog></rule></rules> tags in the rules.xml file.

<dialog_nr config:type="integer">3</dialog_nr>

<element config:type="integer">3</element>

<title>Desktop Selection</title>

<question>KDE Desktop</question>

<timeout config:type="integer">30</timeout>

<conflicts config:type="list">
  <element config:type="integer">1</element>
  <element config:type="integer">5</element>
  ...
</conflicts>

Here is an example of how to use dialogs with rules:

  <rules config:type="list">
    <rule>
        <custom1>
            <script>
echo -n 100
            </script>
           <match>100</match>
           <match_type>exact</match_type>
        </custom1>
        <result>
            <profile>rules/kde.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">true</continue>
        </result>
        <dialog>
            <element config:type="integer">0</element>
            <question>KDE Desktop</question>
            <title>Desktop Selection</title>
            <conflicts config:type="list">
                <element config:type="integer">1</element>
            </conflicts>
            <dialog_nr config:type="integer">0</dialog_nr>
        </dialog>
    </rule>
    <rule>
        <custom1>
            <script>
echo -n 100
            </script>
           <match>101</match>
           <match_type>exact</match_type>
        </custom1>
        <result>
            <profile>rules/gnome.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">true</continue>
        </result>
        <dialog>
            <element config:type="integer">1</element>
            <dialog_nr config:type="integer">0</dialog_nr>
            <question>Gnome Desktop</question>
            <conflicts config:type="list">
                <element config:type="integer">0</element>
            </conflicts>
        </dialog>
    </rule>
    <rule>
        <custom1>
            <script>
echo -n 100
            </script>
           <match>100</match>
           <match_type>exact</match_type>
        </custom1>
        <result>
            <profile>rules/all_the_rest.xml</profile>
            <continue config:type="boolean">false</continue>
        </result>
    </rule>
  </rules>