AUTOINSTALLSCRIPT.CONF(5) AUTOINSTALLSCRIPT.CONF(5)
NAME
autoinstallscript.conf - specify partition and filesystem options
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents briefly the autoinstallscript.conf file.
The autoinstallscript.conf file contains information used by SystemIm-
ager to create an autoinstall script. The resultant autoinstall script
is used to clone Linux systems.
DISK SECTION
This section is used to create a disk label and partitions on each of
your autoinstall client's disks. This section is indicated with the
"disk" tag.
• disk - Partition information about a single disk.
• dev - The device file that represents the disk in question.
• label_type - The kind of disk label used by this disk. Currently,
this can be either "msdos" or "gpt".
• unit_of_measurement - The unit of measurement is used with "size"
tags to specify the size of each partition. This can be set to MB or
%.
• part - Start of information about a new partition.
• num - The minor device number for the partition (partition number).
• size - The size of the partition. The unit used here should corre-
spond to the "unit_of_measurement" setting for the entire disk.
Size can also hold the special value of "*". This is used to indi-
cate that the specified partition should be growable to the end of
the disk. If the last partition is a primary partition, then only
that partition should have "*" specified. If the last partition is a
logical partition, then both the logical partition, and the extended
partition that contains it, should have "*" specified.
• p_type - Partition type. This can be primary, extended, or logical
for msdos labelled disks. This can only be primary for gpt labelled
disks, as gpt disk labels only support primary partitions.
• id - Partition id. This is a hex number used to specify special in-
formation about a partition. It is usually not needed and is op-
tional. In special circumstances where it is needed, sfdisk is used
to change the partition id to the specified type.
• p_name - This is the name of a partition. Gpt partition tables sup-
port naming partitions. If you don't know what this is, you probably
don't want to mess with it. A value of "-" works great (gets ig-
nored)!
• flags - A comma separated list (no spaces) of flags used to specify
particulars about a partition. Possible values are: boot, hidden,
raid, lvm, and lba.
• lvm_group - The partition is used to be part of the specified volume
group name. The attribute "flags" must contain the value 'lvm'.
SOFTWARE-RAID SECTION
This section is used to define Linux Software-RAID arrays on each of
your autoinstall client's disks. This section is indicated with the
"raid" tag.
• raid - Definition of a Soft-RAID disk
• name - The device name of the Soft-RAID disk (i.e. /dev/md0,
/dev/md1, ...)
• raid_level - Define the level of RAID to use. Valid options are:
linear, raid0, 0, stripe, raid1, 1, mirror, raid4, 4, raid5, 5,
raid6, 6. Note that some of these values are synonymous.
• raid_devices - The number of disks or partitions used to be part of
the Software RAID volume.
• spare_devices - The number of disks or partitions used to be part of
spare disks in the Software RAID volume.
• rounding - Specify rounding factor for linear array. This option is
valid only when raid_level="raid1".
• layout - The parity algorithm to use with RAID5. It must be one of
left-asymmetric, right-asymmetric, left-symmetric, or right-symmet-
ric. The default is left-symmetric. This option is valid only when
raid_level="raid5".
• chunk_size - Set the stripe size in kilobytes. It has to be a power
of 2 and has a maximum of 4M. You can tune this parameter to obtain
better performance with your particular system.
• lvm_group - The Soft-RAID disk is used to be part of the specified
volume group name. WARNING: LVM over Software-RAID is not yet sup-
ported by certain distibutions!
• devices - The space separated list of disks or partitions used to be
part of the Software RAID volume (i.e. "/dev/sda3 /dev/sdb3 /dev/sdc3
/dev/sdd3").
LVM SECTION
This section is used to define LVM groups and logical volumes on each
of your autoinstall client's disks. This section is indicated with the
"lvm" tag.
• lvm - LVM definitions delimiter.
• version - Specify the LVM metadata type to use (types supported: "1"
and "2")
• lvm_group - LVM group definition.
• name - The LVM group name.
• max_log_vols - The maximum possible logical volume count.
• max_phys_vols - The maximum possible physical volume count.
• phys_extent_size - Sets the physical extent size on physical volumes
of this volume group. A size suffix (k for kilobytes up to t for ter-
abytes) is optional, megabytes is the default if no suffix is
present. Values can be from 8 KB to 16 GB in powers of 2.
• lv - LVM logical volume definition.
• name - The name of the LVM logical volume.
• size - The size of the LVM logical volume. A size suffix (k for kilo-
bytes up to t for terabytes) is optional, megabytes is the default if
no suffix is present. The special value "*" can be used to assign all
the free space available in the volume group.
FILESYSTEM SECTION
This section is used to create filesystems on each of the used parti-
tions, and to create an fstab file on the autoinstall client. Each
line of this section is indicated with the "fsinfo" tag.
• fsinfo - Start of a new line of information for the fstab file and/or
for filesystem creation information.
• line - This is used to indicate the order that lines should be put
into the fstab file on the autoinstall client.
• comment - Indicates a comment that should be included in the fstab
file, but is not used for any other processing.
• real_dev - The first field in the fstab file. This is the device
where the filesystem resides. It is put into the generated fstab
file and is the device used to mount filesystems on the finished ma-
chine when it reboots.
• mount_dev - Usually the first field in the fstab file will be an ac-
tual device file like "/dev/sda1", but may sometimes look like "LA-
BEL=/boot" or "UUID=c1b9d5a2-f162-11cf-9ece-0020afc76f16". In the
case that it is a LABEL or UUID, instead of a real device, we use
mount_dev to specify the information that will be put in the fstab
file to mount the filesystem after the autoinstall client is imaged.
LABEL and UUID information is stored as part of the filesystem, not
as part of the partition. See fstab(5) for more information.
mount_dev will only exist if a LABEL or UUID is used.
• mp - The second field in the fstab file. Mount point. This is the
name of the directory where the filesystem should be mounted. See
fstab(5) for more information.
• fs - The third field in the fstab file. This is where you specify
what filesystem you want created on the partition specified on
"mount_dev" (or "real_dev"). Valid filesystem types supported by
SystemImager are: ext2, ext3, ext4, msdos, reiserfs, vfat, jfs, xfs
• mkfs_opts - Certain filesystems may require additional information to
properly create a filesystem. Currently, this is only used by msdos
and vfat filesystems. Valid values for msdos and vfat filesystems
are "-F 12", "-F 16", or "-F 32" to specify the FAT size. If you
don't know what you need, or don't care, you can leave this blank and
defaults will be used.
• options - The fourth field in the fstab file. Options needed when
mounting the filesystem. If you don't know that you need any special
options, just use "default". See fstab(5) for more information.
• dump - The fifth field in the fstab file. This should be a number
that is used by dump(8). If you don't know what to put here, just
use "0". See fstab(5) for more information.
• pass - The sixth field in the fstab file. This is used by the fsck
program to determine the order in which filesystem checks are done at
boot time. See fstab(5) for more information.
• format - Used to tell SystemImager to not create a filesystem on a
partition. If this is set to "no", the filesystem will not be cre-
ated. If it is absent, or contains any other value, then a filesys-
tem will be created.
BOEL SECTION
This section contains miscellaneous settings used by BOEL (Brian's Own
Embedded Linux), the embedded linux that performs an install on autoin-
stall clients.
• devstyle - Tells the autoinstallscript to mount the devfs filesystem
in the image prior to running System Configurator, which prepares the
client's boot loader. Many boot loaders need to access the disks at
this point, and systems that use devfs won't have any device files in
the freshly copied image for the boot loader to use (at this point,
BOEL has done a chroot into the root of the filesystem on the freshly
installed client).
LIMITATIONS
If you make a change to this file that could affect the boot process,
for example, changing your root device, then you must also modify your
boot loader's configuration file. This file can be modified either di-
rectly in the image, or in an override directory. For more information
on override directories, see the full manual in /usr/share/doc/sys-
temimager-doc/ or at http://systemimager.org/documentation/.
SEE ALSO
si_mkautoinstallscript(8), fstab(5)
More details can be found in the SystemImager manual.
AUTHOR
This manual page was compiled by dann <<dannf@debian.org>> for the De-
bian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).
July 28, 2002 AUTOINSTALLSCRIPT.CONF(5)
Generated by dwww version 1.15 on Mon Jun 24 14:31:39 CEST 2024.