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New Installer: Autoinstallation

Ladislav Slezák edited this page Oct 16, 2013 · 1 revision

Autoinstallation

The new installer is required to provide an automated or semi-automated method to install the system.

Implementation in Installer

The installer specifies these major installation steps. Autoinstallation will just replace Configuration step with this functionality:

  1. Given that URI to an installation configuration file is known

    Supported Methods:

    • entered on (installer) command line
    • located via install server (§3.4)
  2. Check if all mandatory pieces of information are present. If a piece of information is missing, installer should auto-decide as much as possible and ask only for really mandatory information.

    • consider parsing KIWI config file inside a Studio disk image to get the preconfigured items, find more information in the document about KIWI images
    • Mandatory and optional info is documented in a separate file.
  3. Ask user for entering all missing mandatory items in UI

  4. Finish the Configuration step and hand over to Deployment step

EULA Confirmation

(checked with Ciaran)

In spite of installation being automatic, it is necessary to assure that user approves EULAs. The most safe option is to explicitly list (in the AutoYaST profile or its equivalent) which EULAs are approved (meaning, explicitly list all product and package names in the profile). This assures that no package with EULA will be dragged into the system via dependencies without user explicitly noticing that. In this case, installation cannot proceed unless user confirms the respective EULAs manually; manual interaction will be needed, with following options:

  • explicitly accepting the respective EULA
  • manual deselection of the package (which may mean more conflicts to resolve)
  • aborting and restarting the installation with fixed profile

Even if multiple packages have the same text of the EULA, accepting the EULA for one of them does not mean that user accepted the same EULA for all other packages.

Accepting all EULAs could also be an option - but it must be mentioned explicitly that accepting is really related to ALL EULAs.

(Auto)installer must assure that no package without approved EULA will be installed.

Existing Import/Export

We don't see a reason to not keep the existing read/write/import/export mechanism of AutoYaST.

But the mechanism should be extended to provide ordering of the modules since there can be dependencies (e.g. bootloader setup needs information about storage setup). This is esp. important if Add-Ons supply new modules.