For installing on multiple computers it's possible to do fully
automatic installations. Ubuntu packages intended for this include
fai
(which uses an install server),
replicator
,
systemimager
,
autoinstall
, and
the Ubuntu Installer itself.
The Ubuntu Installer supports automating installs via preconfiguration files. A preconfiguration file can be loaded from the network or from removable media, and used to fill in answers to question asked during the installation process.
The preconfiguration file is in the format used by the debconf-set-selections command. A well documented and working example that you can edit is in Section C.1, “Preconfiguration File Example”.
Alternatively, one way to get a complete file listing
all the values that can be preseeded is to do a manual install,
and then use debconf-get-selections
,
from the debconf-utils
package,
to dump both the debconf database and the cdebconf
database in /var/log/installer/cdebconf 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 file in Section C.1, “Preconfiguration File Example” is a better starting place for most users.
Once you have a preconfiguration file, you can edit it if necessary, and place it on a web server, or copy it onto the installer's boot media. Wherever you place the file, you need to pass a parameter to the installer at boot time to tell it to use the file.
To make the installer use a preconfiguration file downloaded from the network, add preseed/url=http://url/to/preseed.cfg to the kernel boot parameters. Of course the preconfiguration will not take effect until the installer manages to set up the network to download the file, so this is most useful if the installer can set up the network via DHCP without asking any questions. You may want to set the installation priority to critical to avoid any questions while the network is being configured. See Section 5.2.1, “Ubuntu Installer Parameters”.
To place a preconfiguration file on a CD, you would need to remaster the ISO image to include your preconfiguration file. See the manual page for mkisofs for details. Alternatively, put the preseed file on a floppy, and use preseed/file=/floppy/preseed.cfg
The Ubuntu installer has preliminary support for automating installs using Kickstart files, as designed by Red Hat for use in their Anaconda installer. This method is not as flexible as the preconfiguration file method above, but it requires less knowledge of how the installer works.
This section documents only the basics, and differences between Anaconda and the Ubuntu installer. Refer to the Red Hat documentation for detailed instructions.
To generate a Kickstart file, install the
system-config-kickstart
package and run
system-config-kickstart
. This offers you a graphical
user interface to the various options available.
Once you have a Kickstart file, you can edit it if necessary, and place it on a web, FTP, or NFS server, or copy it onto the installer's boot media. Wherever you place the file, you need to pass a parameter to the installer at boot time to tell it to use the file.
To make the installer use a Kickstart file downloaded from a web or FTP server, add ks=http://url/to/ks.cfg or ks=ftp://url/to/ks.cfg respectively to the kernel boot parameters. This requires the installer to be able to set up the network via DHCP on the first connected interface without asking any questions; you may also need to add ksdevice=eth1 or similar if the installer fails to determine the correct interface automatically.
Similarly, to make the installer use a Kickstart file on an NFS server, add ks=nfs:server:/path/to/ks.cfg to the kernel boot parameters. The method supported by Anaconda of adding a plain "ks" boot parameter to work out the location of the Kickstart file from a DHCP response is not yet supported by the Ubuntu installer.
To place a Kickstart file on a CD, you would need to remaster the ISO image to include your Kickstart file, and add ks=cdrom:/path/to/ks.cfg to the kernel boot parameters. See the manual page for mkisofs for details. Alternatively, put the Kickstart file on a floppy, and add ks=floppy:/path/to/ks.cfg to the kernel boot parameters.
The Ubuntu installer supports a few extensions to Kickstart that were needed to support automatic installations of Ubuntu:
The rootpw
command now takes the
--disabled
option to disable the root password. If
this is used, the initial user will be given root privileges via
sudo
.
A new user
command has been added to control the
creation of the initial user:
user joe
--fullname "Joe User" --password iamjoe
The --disabled
option prevents any non-root users
from being created. The --fullname
option specifies
the user's full name, as opposed to the Unix username. The
--password
option supplies the user's password, by
default in the clear (in which case make sure your Kickstart file is kept
confidential!); the --iscrypted
option may be used to
state that the password is already MD5-hashed.
A new preseed
command has been added to provide a
convenient way to preseed additional items in the debconf database that are
not directly accessible using the ordinary Kickstart syntax:
preseed --owner gdm shared/default-x-display-manager select gdm
The --owner
option sets the name of the package that
owns the question; if omitted, it defaults to d-i, which is generally
appropriate for items affecting the first stage of the installer. The three
mandatory arguments are the question name, question type, and answer, in
that order, just as would be supplied as input to the
debconf-set-selections
command.
As yet, the Ubuntu installer only supports a subset of Kickstart's features. The following is a brief summary of features that are known to be missing:
LDAP, Kerberos 5, Hesiod, and Samba authentication.
The auth --enablecache
command to enable
nscd
.
The bootloader --linear
,
--nolinear
, and --lba32
options for detailed LILO configuration.
Upgrades. To upgrade from one Ubuntu release to another, use the facilities
provided by apt
and its frontends.
Partitioning of multiple drives. Due to current limitations in the partition manager, it is only possible to partition a single drive.
Using the device
command to install extra kernel
modules.
Driver disks.
Firewall configuration.
Installation from an archive on a local hard disk or from an NFS archive.
The lilocheck
command to check for an existing LILO
installation.
Logical Volume Management (LVM) configuration.
Restrictions of a partition to a particular disk or device, and specifications of the starting or ending cylinder for a partition.
Checking a partition for bad sectors.
RAID configuration.
The xconfig --monitor
option to use a specified
monitor name.
Most package groups. As special cases, the "Ubuntu Desktop" and "Kubuntu Desktop" groups install the standard Ubuntu or Kubuntu desktop systems respectively, and any group name not containing a space (for example, "ubuntu-desktop") causes packages with the corresponding Task: header in the Packages file to be installed.
Pre-installation scripts and non-chrooted post-installation scripts may only be shell scripts; other interpreters are not available at this point in the installation.