This appendix explains how to preseed answers to questions in &d-i; to automate your installation. The configuration fragments used in this appendix are also available as an example preconfiguration file from &urlset-example-preseed;. Preseeding provides a way to set answers to questions asked during the installation process, without having to manually enter the answers while the installation is running. This makes it possible to fully automate most types of installation and even offers some features not available during normal installations. There are three methods that can be used for preseeding: initrd, file and network. Initrd preseeding will work with any installation method and supports preseeding of more things, but it requires the most preparation. File and network preseeding each can be used with different installation methods. The following table shows which preseeding methods can be used with which installation methods. Installation methodinitrd filenetwork CD/DVD yes yes yes but only if you have network access, and set preseed/url appropriately netboot yes no yes hd-media (including usb-stick) yes yes yes floppy based (cd-drivers) yes yes yes floppy based (net-drivers) yes no yes generic/tape yes no yes An important difference between the preseeding methods is the point at which the preconfiguration file is loaded and processed. For initrd preseeding this is right at the start of the installation, before the first question is even asked. For file preseeding this is after the CD or CD image has been loaded. For network preseeding it is only after the network has been configured. Obviously, any questions that have been processed before the preconfiguration file is loaded cannot be preseeded (this will include questions that are only displayed at medium or low priority, like the first hardware detection run). offers a way to avoid these questions being asked. In order to avoid the questions that would normally appear before the preseeding occurs, you can start the installer in auto mode. This delays questions that would normally be asked too early for preseeding (i.e. language, country and keyboard selection) until after the network comes up, thus allowing them to be preseeded. It also runs the installation at critical priority, which avoids many unimportant questions. See for details. Although most questions used by &d-i; can be preseeded using this method, there are some notable exceptions. You must (re)partition an entire disk or use available free space on a disk; it is not possible to use existing partitions. You will first need to create a preconfiguration file and place it in the location from where you want to use it. Creating the preconfiguration file is covered later in this appendix. Putting it in the correct location is fairly straightforward for network preseeding or if you want to read the file off a floppy or usb-stick. If you want to include the file on a CD or DVD, you will have to remaster the ISO image. How to get the preconfiguration file included in the initrd is outside the scope of this document; please consult the developers' documentation for &d-i;. An example preconfiguration file that you can use as basis for your own preconfiguration file is available from &urlset-example-preseed;. This file is based on the configuration fragments included in this appendix. If you are using initrd preseeding, you only have to make sure a file named preseed.cfg is included in the root directory of the initrd. The installer will automatically check if this file is present and load it. For the other preseeding methods you need to tell the installer what file to use when you boot it. This is normally done by passing the kernel a boot parameter, either manually at boot time or by editing the bootloader configuration file (e.g. syslinux.cfg) and adding the parameter to the end of the append line(s) for the kernel. If you do specify the preconfiguration file in the bootloader configuration, you might change the configuration so you don't need to hit enter to boot the installer. For syslinux this means setting the timeout to 1 in syslinux.cfg. To make sure the installer gets the right preconfiguration file, you can optionally specify a checksum for the file. Currently this needs to be a md5sum, and if specified it must match the preconfiguration file or the installer will refuse to use it. Boot parameters to specify: - if you're netbooting: preseed/url=http://host/path/to/preseed.cfg preseed/url/checksum=5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d - if you're booting a remastered CD: preseed/file=/cdrom/preseed.cfg preseed/file/checksum=5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d - if you're installing from USB media (put the preconfiguration file in the toplevel directory of the USB stick): preseed/file=/hd-media/preseed.cfg preseed/file/checksum=5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d Note that preseed/url can be shortened to just url and preseed/file to just file when they are passed as boot parameters. If a preconfiguration file cannot be used to preseed some steps, the install can still be fully automated, since you can pass preseed values on the command line when booting the installer. Boot parameters can also be used if you do not really want to use preseeding, but just want to provide an answer for a specific question. Some examples where this can be useful are documented elsewhere in this manual. To set a value to be used inside &d-i;, just pass path/to/variable=value for any of the preseed variables listed in the examples in this appendix. If a value is to be used to configure packages for the target system, you will need to prepend the owner The owner of a debconf variable (or template) is normally the name of the package that contains the corresponding debconf template. For variables used in the installer itself the owner is d-i. Templates and variables can have more than one owner which helps to determine whether they can be removed from the debconf database if the package is purged. of the variable as in owner:path/to/variable=value. If you don't specify the owner, the value for the variable will not be copied to the debconf database in the target system and thus remain unused during the configuration of the relevant package. Normally, preseeding a question in this way will mean that the question will not be asked. To set a specific default value for a question, but still have the question asked, use ?= instead of = as operator. See also . Note that some variables that are frequently set at the boot prompt have a shorter alias. If an alias is available, it is used in the examples in this appendix instead of the full variable. The preseed/url variable for example has been aliased as url. Another example is the tasks alias, which translates to tasksel:tasksel/first. A -- in the boot options has special meaning. Kernel parameters that appear after the last -- may be copied into the bootloader configuration for the installed system (if supported by the installer for the bootloader). The installer will automatically filter out any options (like preconfiguration options) that it recognizes. Current linux kernels (2.6.9 and later) accept a maximum of 32 command line options and 32 environment options, including any options added by default for the installer. If these numbers are exceeded, the kernel will panic (crash). (For earlier kernels, these numbers were lower.) For most installations some of the default options in your bootloader configuration file, like vga=normal, may be safely removed which may allow you to add more options for preseeding. It may not always be possible to specify values with spaces for boot parameters, even if you delimit them with quotes. There are several features of Debian Installer that combine to allow fairly simple command lines at the boot prompt to result in arbitrarily complex customized automatic installs. To illustrate this, here are some examples that can be used at the boot prompt: auto url=autoserver This relies on there being a DHCP server that will get the machine to the point where autoserver can be resolved by DNS, perhaps after adding the local domain if that was provided by DHCP. If this was done at a site where the domain is example.com, and they have a reasonably sane DHCP setup, it would result in the preseed file being retrieved from http://autoserver.example.com/d-i/etch/./preseed.cfg. The last part of that url (d-i/etch/./preseed.cfg) is taken from auto-install/defaultroot. By default this includes the directory etch to allow future versions to specify their own codename and let people migrate forwards in a controlled manner. The /./ bit is used to indicate a root, relative to which subsequent paths can be anchored (for use in preseed/include and preseed/run). This allows files to be specified either as full URLs, paths starting with / that are thus anchored, or even paths relative to the location where the last preseed file was found. This can be used to construct more portable scripts where an entire hierarchy of scripts can be moved to a new location without breaking it, for example copying the files onto a USB stick when they started out on a web server. In this example, if the preseed file sets preseed/run to /scripts/late_command.sh then the file will be fetched from http://autoserver.example.com/d-i/etch/./scripts/late_command.sh. If there is no local DHCP or DNS infrastructure, or if you do not want to use the default path to preseed.cfg, you can still use an explicit url, and if you don't use the /./ element it will be anchored to the start of the path (i.e. the third / in the URL). Here is an example that requires minimal support from the local network infrastructure: auto url=http://192.168.1.2/path/to/mypreseed.file The way this works is that: if the URL is missing a protocol, http is assumed, if the hostname section contains no periods, it has the domain derived from DHCP appended to it, and if there's no /'s after the hostname, then the default path is added. In addition to specifying the url, you can also specify settings that do not directly affect the behavior of &d-i; itself, but can be passed through to scripts specified using preseed/run in the loaded preseed file. At present, the only example of this is auto-install/classes, which has an alias classes. This can be used thus: auto url=example.com classes=class_A;class_B The classes could for example denote the type of system to be installed, or the localization to be used. It is of course possible to extend this concept, and if you do, it is reasonable to use the auto-install namespace for this. So one might have something like auto-install/style which is then used in your scripts. If you feel the need to do this, please mention it on the debian-boot@lists.debian.org mailing list so that we can avoid namespace conflicts, and perhaps add an alias for the parameter for you. The auto boot label is not yet defined on all architectures. The same effect may be achieved by simply adding the two parameters auto=true priority=critical to the kernel command line. The auto parameter is an alias for auto-install/enable and controls the delay of the locale and keyboard questions until after there has been a chance to preseed them, while priority is an alias for debconf/priority and setting it to critical stops any questions with a lower priority from being asked. Additional options that may be of interest while attempting to automate an install while using DHCP are: interface=auto netcfg/dhcp_timeout=60 which makes the machine choose the first viable NIC and be more patient about getting a reply to its DHCP query. An extensive example of how to use this framework, including example scripts and classes, can be found on the website of its developer. The examples available there also show many other nice effects that can be achieved by creative use of preconfiguration. The following aliases can be useful when using (auto mode) preseeding. autoauto-install/enable classesauto-install/classes fbdebian-installer/framebuffer localedebian-installer/locale prioritydebconf/priority filepreseed/file urlpreseed/url interfacenetcfg/choose_interface hostname   netcfg/get_hostname domainnetcfg/get_domain protocolmirror/protocol suitemirror/suite It's also possible to use DHCP to specify a preconfiguration file to download from the network. DHCP allows specifying a filename. Normally this is a file to netboot, but if it appears to be an URL then installation media that support network preseeding will download the file from the URL and use it as a preconfiguration file. Here is an example of how to set it up in the dhcpd.conf for version 3 of the ISC DHCP server (the dhcp3-server Debian package). if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 3) = "d-i" { filename "http://host/preseed.cfg"; } Note that the above example limits this filename to DHCP clients that identify themselves as "d-i", so it will not affect regular DHCP clients, but only the installer. You can also put the text in a stanza for only one particular host to avoid preseeding all installs on your network. A good way to use the DHCP preseeding is to only preseed values specific to your network, such as the Debian mirror to use. This way installs on your network will automatically get a good mirror selected, but the rest of the installation can be performed interactively. Using DHCP preseeding to fully automate Debian installs should only be done with care. The preconfiguration file is in the format used by the debconf-set-selections command. The general format of a line in a preconfiguration file is: <owner> <question name> <question type> <value> There are a few rules to keep in mind when writing a preconfiguration file. Put only a single space or tab between type and value: any additional whitespace will be interpreted as belonging to the value. A line can be split into multiple lines by appending a backslash (\) as the line continuation character. A good place to split a line is after the question name; a bad place is between type and value. Most questions need to be preseeded using the values valid in English and not the translated values. However, there are some questions (for example in partman) where the translated values need to be used. Some questions take a code as value instead of the English text that is shown during installation. The easiest way to create a preconfiguration file is to use the example file linked in as basis and work from there. An alternative method is to do a manual installation and then, after rebooting, use the debconf-get-selections from the debconf-utils package to dump both the debconf database and the installer's cdebconf database to a single file: $ debconf-get-selections --installer > file $ debconf-get-selections >> file However, a file generated in this manner will have some items that should not be preseeded, and the example file is a better starting place for most users. This method relies on the fact that, at the end of the installation, the installer's cdebconf database is saved to the installed system in /var/log/installer/cdebconf. However, because the database may contain sensitive information, by default the files are only readable by root. The directory /var/log/installer and all files in it will be deleted from your system if you purge the package installation-report. To check possible values for questions, you can use nano to examine the files in /var/lib/cdebconf while an installation is in progress. View templates.dat for the raw templates and questions.dat for the current values and for the values assigned to variables. To check if the format of your preconfiguration file is valid before performing an install, you can use the command debconf-set-selections -c preseed.cfg. The configuration fragments used in this appendix are also available as an example preconfiguration file from &urlset-example-preseed;. Note that this example is based on an installation for the Intel x86 architecture. If you are installing a different architecture, some of the examples (like keyboard selection and bootloader installation) may not be relevant and will need to be replaced by debconf settings appropriate for your architecture. Setting localization values will only work if you are using initrd preseeding. With all other methods the preconfiguration file will only be loaded after these questions have been asked. The locale can be used to specify both language and country. To specify the locale as a boot parameter, use locale=en_US. # Locale sets language and country. d-i debian-installer/locale string en_US Keyboard configuration consists of selecting a keyboard architecture and a keymap. In most cases the correct keyboard architecture is selected by default, so there's normally no need to preseed it. The keymap must be valid for the selected keyboard architecture. # Keyboard selection. #d-i console-tools/archs select at d-i console-keymaps-at/keymap select us # Example for a different keyboard architecture #d-i console-keymaps-usb/keymap select mac-usb-us To skip keyboard configuration, preseed console-tools/archs with skip-config. This will result in the kernel keymap remaining active. The changes in the input layer for 2.6 kernels have made the keyboard architecture virtually obsolete. For 2.6 kernels normally a PC (at) keymap should be selected. Of course, preseeding the network configuration won't work if you're loading your preconfiguration file from the network. But it's great when you're booting from CD or USB stick. If you are loading preconfiguration files from the network, you can pass network config parameters by using kernel boot parameters. If you need to pick a particular interface when netbooting before loading a preconfiguration file from the network, use a boot parameter such as interface=eth1. Although preseeding the network configuration is normally not possible when using network preseeding (using preseed/url), you can use the following hack to work around that, for example if you'd like to set a static address for the network interface. The hack is to force the network configuration to run again after the preconfiguration file has been loaded by creating a preseed/run script containing the following lines: killall.sh dhclient netcfg # netcfg will choose an interface that has link if possible. This makes it # skip displaying a list if there is more than one interface. d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto # To pick a particular interface instead: #d-i netcfg/choose_interface select eth1 # If you have a slow dhcp server and the installer times out waiting for # it, this might be useful. #d-i netcfg/dhcp_timeout string 60 # If you prefer to configure the network manually, uncomment this line and # the static network configuration below. #d-i netcfg/disable_dhcp boolean true # If you want the preconfiguration file to work on systems both with and # without a dhcp server, uncomment these lines and the static network # configuration below. #d-i netcfg/dhcp_failed note #d-i netcfg/dhcp_options select Configure network manually # Static network configuration. #d-i netcfg/get_nameservers string 192.168.1.1 #d-i netcfg/get_ipaddress string 192.168.1.42 #d-i netcfg/get_netmask string 255.255.255.0 #d-i netcfg/get_gateway string 192.168.1.1 #d-i netcfg/confirm_static boolean true # Any hostname and domain names assigned from dhcp take precedence over # values set here. However, setting the values still prevents the questions # from being shown, even if values come from dhcp. d-i netcfg/get_hostname string unassigned-hostname d-i netcfg/get_domain string unassigned-domain # Disable that annoying WEP key dialog. d-i netcfg/wireless_wep string # The wacky dhcp hostname that some ISPs use as a password of sorts. #d-i netcfg/dhcp_hostname string radish Depending on the installation method you use, a mirror may be used to download additional components of the installer, to install the base system, and to set up the /etc/apt/sources.list for the installed system. The parameter mirror/suite determines the suite for the installed system. The parameter mirror/udeb/suite determines the suite for additional components for the installer. It is only useful to set this if components are actually downloaded over the network and should match the suite that was used to build the initrd for the installation method used for the installation. By default the value for mirror/udeb/suite is the same as mirror/suite. # If you select ftp, the mirror/country string does not need to be set. #d-i mirror/protocol string ftp d-i mirror/country string enter information manually d-i mirror/country string manual d-i mirror/http/hostname string &archive-mirror; d-i mirror/http/directory string /debian d-i mirror/http/proxy string # Suite to install. #d-i mirror/suite string testing # Suite to use for loading installer components (optional). #d-i mirror/udeb/suite string testing Using preseeding to partition the harddisk is very much limited to what is supported by partman-auto. You can choose to partition either existing free space on a disk or a whole disk. The layout of the disk can be determined by using a predefined recipe, a custom recipe from a recipe file or a recipe included in the preconfiguration file. It is currently not possible to partition multiple disks using preseeding. The identification of disks is dependent on the order in which their drivers are loaded. If there are multiple disks in the system, make very sure the correct one will be selected before using preseeding. # If the system has free space you can choose to only partition that space. # Note: this must be preseeded with a localized (translated) value. #d-i partman-auto/init_automatically_partition \ # select Guided - use the largest continuous free space # Alternatively, you can specify a disk to partition. The device name # can be given in either devfs or traditional non-devfs format. # For example, to use the first disk: d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/discs/disc0/disc # In addition, you'll need to specify the method to use. # The presently available methods are: "regular", "lvm" and "crypto" d-i partman-auto/method string lvm # If one of the disks that are going to be automatically partitioned # contains an old LVM configuration, the user will normally receive a # warning. This can be preseeded away... d-i partman-auto/purge_lvm_from_device boolean true # And the same goes for the confirmation to write the lvm partitions. d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true # You can choose from any of the predefined partitioning recipes. # Note: this must be preseeded with a localized (translated) value. d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe \ select All files in one partition (recommended for new users) #d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe \ # select Separate /home partition #d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe \ # select Separate /home, /usr, /var, and /tmp partitions # Or provide a recipe of your own... # The recipe format is documented in the file devel/partman-auto-recipe.txt. # If you have a way to get a recipe file into the d-i environment, you can # just point at it. #d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe_file string /hd-media/recipe # If not, you can put an entire recipe into the preconfiguration file in one # (logical) line. This example creates a small /boot partition, suitable # swap, and uses the rest of the space for the root partition: #d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe string \ # boot-root :: \ # 40 50 100 ext3 \ # $primary{ } $bootable{ } \ # method{ format } format{ } \ # use_filesystem{ } filesystem{ ext3 } \ # mountpoint{ /boot } \ # . \ # 500 10000 1000000000 ext3 \ # method{ format } format{ } \ # use_filesystem{ } filesystem{ ext3 } \ # mountpoint{ / } \ # . \ # 64 512 300% linux-swap \ # method{ swap } format{ } \ # . # This makes partman automatically partition without confirmation. d-i partman/confirm_write_new_label boolean true d-i partman/choose_partition \ select Finish partitioning and write changes to disk d-i partman/confirm boolean true You can also use preseeding to set up partitions on software RAID arrays. Supported are RAID levels 0, 1 and 5, creating degraded arrays and specifying spare devices. If you are using RAID 1, you can preseed grub to install to all devices used in the array; see . This type of automated partitioning is easy to get wrong. It is also a very new component that may still have some bugs or missing error handling. The responsibility to get the various recipes right (so they make sense and don't conflict) lies with the user. Check /var/log/syslog if you run into problems. Note that only RAID 0 and RAID 1 have been tested by the developers of the component. RAID 5 is untested. Advanced RAID setup with degraded arrays or spare devices has only been tested lightly. # NOTE: this option is of beta release quality and should be used carefully # The method should be set to "raid". #d-i partman-auto/method string raid # Specify the disks to be partitioned. They will all get the same layout, # so this will only work if the disks are the same size. #d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/discs/disc0/disc /dev/discs/disc1/disc # Next you need to specify the physical partitions that will be used. #d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe string \ # multiraid :: \ # 1000 5000 4000 raid \ # $primary{ } method{ raid } \ # . \ # 64 512 300% raid \ # method{ raid } \ # . \ # 500 10000 1000000000 raid \ # method{ raid } \ # . # Last you need to specify how the previously defined partitions will be # used in the RAID setup. Remember to use the correct partition numbers # for logical partitions. # Parameters are: # <raidtype> <devcount> <sparecount> <fstype> <mountpoint> \ # <devices> <sparedevices> # RAID levels 0, 1 and 5 are supported; devices are separated using "#" #d-i partman-auto-raid/recipe string \ # 1 2 0 ext3 / \ # /dev/discs/disc0/part1#/dev/discs/disc1/part1 \ # . \ # 1 2 0 swap - \ # /dev/discs/disc0/part5#/dev/discs/disc1/part5 \ # . \ # 0 2 0 ext3 /home \ # /dev/discs/disc0/part6#/dev/discs/disc1/part6 \ # . # This makes partman automatically partition without confirmation. d-i partman-md/confirm boolean true d-i partman/confirm_write_new_label boolean true d-i partman/choose_partition \ select Finish partitioning and write changes to disk d-i partman/confirm boolean true # Controls whether or not the hardware clock is set to UTC. d-i clock-setup/utc boolean true # You may set this to any valid setting for $TZ; see the contents of # /usr/share/zoneinfo/ for valid values. d-i time/zone string US/Eastern The password for the root account and name and password for a first regular user's account can be preseeded. For the passwords you can use either clear text values or MD5 hashes. Be aware that preseeding passwords is not completely secure as everyone with access to the preconfiguration file will have the knowledge of these passwords. Using MD5 hashes is considered slightly better in terms of security but it might also give a false sense of security as access to a MD5 hash allows for brute force attacks. # Skip creation of a root account (normal user account will be able to # use sudo). #d-i passwd/root-login boolean false # Alternatively, to skip creation of a normal user account. #d-i passwd/make-user boolean false # Root password, either in clear text #d-i passwd/root-password password r00tme #d-i passwd/root-password-again password r00tme # or encrypted using an MD5 hash. #d-i passwd/root-password-crypted password [MD5 hash] # To create a normal user account. #d-i passwd/user-fullname string Debian User #d-i passwd/username string debian # Normal user's password, either in clear text #d-i passwd/user-password password insecure #d-i passwd/user-password-again password insecure # or encrypted using an MD5 hash. #d-i passwd/user-password-crypted password [MD5 hash] # The user account will be added to some standard initial groups. To # override that, use this. #d-i passwd/user-default-groups string audio cdrom video The passwd/root-password-crypted and passwd/user-password-crypted variables can also be preseeded with ! as their value. In that case, the corresponding account is disabled. This may be convenient for the root account, provided of course that an alternative method is setup to allow administrative activities or root login (for instance by using SSH key authentication or sudo). An MD5 hash for a password can be generated using the following command. $ echo "r00tme" | mkpasswd -s -H MD5 There is actually not very much that can be preseeded for this stage of the installation. The only questions asked concern the installation of the kernel. # Select the initramfs generator used to generate the initrd for 2.6 kernels. #d-i base-installer/kernel/linux/initramfs-generators string yaird Setup of the /etc/apt/sources.list and basic configuration options is fully automated based on your installation method and answers to earlier questions. You can optionally add other (local) repositories. # You can choose to install non-free and contrib software. #d-i apt-setup/non-free boolean true #d-i apt-setup/contrib boolean true # Uncomment this if you don't want to use a network mirror. #d-i apt-setup/use_mirror boolean false # Uncomment this to avoid adding security sources, or # add a hostname to use a different server than security.debian.org. #d-i apt-setup/security_host string # Additional repositories, local[0-9] available #d-i apt-setup/local0/repository string \ # http://local.server/debian stable main #d-i apt-setup/local0/comment string local server # Enable deb-src lines #d-i apt-setup/local0/source boolean true # URL to the public key of the local repository; you must provide a key or # apt will complain about the unauthenticated repository and so the # sources.list line will be left commented out #d-i apt-setup/local0/key string http://local.server/key # By default the installer requires that repositories be authenticated # using a known gpg key. This setting can be used to disable that # authentication. Warning: Insecure, not recommended. #d-i debian-installer/allow_unauthenticated string true You can choose to install any combination of tasks that are available. Available tasks as of this writing include: standard desktop gnome-desktop kde-desktop web-server print-server dns-server file-server mail-server sql-database laptop You can also choose to install no tasks, and force the installation of a set of packages in some other way. We recommend always including the standard task. If you want to install some individual packages in addition to packages installed by tasks, you can use the parameter pkgsel/include. The value of this parameter can be a list of packages separated by either commas or spaces, which allows it to be used easily on the kernel command line as well. #tasksel tasksel/first multiselect standard, web-server # If the desktop task is selected, install the kde and xfce desktops # instead of the default gnome desktop. #tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect kde-desktop, xfce-desktop #tasksel tasksel/first multiselect standard, kde-desktop # Individual additional packages to install #d-i pkgsel/include string openssh-server build-essential # Some versions of the installer can report back on what software you have # installed, and what software you use. The default is not to report back, # but sending reports helps the project determine what software is most # popular and include it on CDs. #popularity-contest popularity-contest/participate boolean false # Grub is the default boot loader (for x86). If you want lilo installed # instead, uncomment this: #d-i grub-installer/skip boolean true # To also skip installing lilo, and install no bootloader, uncomment this # too: #d-i lilo-installer/skip boolean true # This is fairly safe to set, it makes grub install automatically to the MBR # if no other operating system is detected on the machine. d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean true # This one makes grub-installer install to the MBR if it also finds some other # OS, which is less safe as it might not be able to boot that other OS. d-i grub-installer/with_other_os boolean true # Alternatively, if you want to install to a location other than the mbr, # uncomment and edit these lines: #d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean false #d-i grub-installer/with_other_os boolean false #d-i grub-installer/bootdev string (hd0,0) # To install grub to multiple disks: #d-i grub-installer/bootdev string (hd0,0) (hd1,0) (hd2,0) # Avoid that last message about the install being complete. d-i finish-install/reboot_in_progress note # This will prevent the installer from ejecting the CD during the reboot, # which is useful in some situations. #d-i cdrom-detect/eject boolean false Preseeding Debian's X config is possible, but you probably need to know some details about the video hardware of the machine, since Debian's X configurator does not do fully automatic configuration of everything. # X can detect the right driver for some cards, but if you're preseeding, # you override whatever it chooses. Still, vesa will work most places. #xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/config/device/driver select vesa # A caveat with mouse autodetection is that if it fails, X will retry it # over and over. So if it's preseeded to be done, there is a possibility of # an infinite loop if the mouse is not autodetected. #xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/autodetect_mouse boolean true # Monitor autodetection is recommended. xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/autodetect_monitor boolean true # Uncomment if you have an LCD display. #xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/config/monitor/lcd boolean true # X has three configuration paths for the monitor. Here's how to preseed # the "medium" path, which is always available. The "simple" path may not # be available, and the "advanced" path asks too many questions. xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/config/monitor/selection-method \ select medium xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/config/monitor/mode-list \ select 1024x768 @ 60 Hz # Depending on what software you choose to install, or if things go wrong # during the installation process, it's possible that other questions may # be asked. You can preseed those too, of course. To get a list of every # possible question that could be asked during an install, do an # installation, and then run these commands: # debconf-get-selections --installer > file # debconf-get-selections >> file A very powerful and flexible option offered by the preconfiguration tools is the ability to run commands or scripts at certain points in the installation. # d-i preseeding is inherently not secure. Nothing in the installer checks # for attempts at buffer overflows or other exploits of the values of a # preconfiguration file like this one. Only use preconfiguration files from # trusted locations! To drive that home, and because it's generally useful, # here's a way to run any shell command you'd like inside the installer, # automatically. # This first command is run as early as possible, just after # preseeding is read. #d-i preseed/early_command string anna-install some-udeb # This command is run just before the install finishes, but when there is # still a usable /target directory. You can chroot to /target and use it # directly, or use the apt-install and in-target commands to easily install # packages and run commands in the target system. #d-i preseed/late_command string apt-install zsh; in-target chsh -s /bin/zsh It is possible to use preseeding to change the default answer for a question, but still have the question asked. To do this the seen flag must be reset to false after setting the value for a question. d-i foo/bar string value d-i foo/bar seen false The same effect can be achieved for all questions by setting the parameter preseed/interactive=true at the boot prompt. This can also be useful for testing or debugging your preconfiguration file. If you are preseeding using boot parameters, you can make the installer ask the corresponding question by using the ?= operator, i.e. foo/bar?=value. This will of course only have effect for parameters that correspond to questions that are actually displayed during an installation and not for internal parameters. It is possible to include other preconfiguration files from a preconfiguration file. Any settings in those files will override pre-existing settings from files loaded earlier. This makes it possible to put, for example, general networking settings for your location in one file and more specific settings for certain configurations in other files. # More than one file can be listed, separated by spaces; all will be # loaded. The included files can have preseed/include directives of their # own as well. Note that if the filenames are relative, they are taken from # the same directory as the preconfiguration file that includes them. #d-i preseed/include string x.cfg # The installer can optionally verify checksums of preconfiguration files # before using them. Currently only md5sums are supported, list the md5sums # in the same order as the list of files to include. #d-i preseed/include/checksum string 5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d # More flexibly, this runs a shell command and if it outputs the names of # preconfiguration files, includes those files. #d-i preseed/include_command \ # string echo if [ "`hostname`" = bob ]; then echo bob.cfg; fi # Most flexibly of all, this downloads a program and runs it. The program # can use commands such as debconf-set to manipulate the debconf database. # More than one script can be listed, separated by spaces. # Note that if the filenames are relative, they are taken from the same # directory as the preconfiguration file that runs them. #d-i preseed/run string foo.sh It is also possible to chainload from the initrd or file preseeding phase, into network preseeding by setting preseed/url in the earlier files. This will cause network preseeding to be performed when the network comes up. You need to be careful when doing this, since there will be two distinct runs at preseeding, meaning for example that you get another chance to run the preseed/early command, the second one happening after the network comes up.