Issue with jumpstart install
 

I've followed a few guides and have what appears to be a working jumpstart server. I can PXE boot a bare system, it gets an IP and launches the installer. However, it takes me to the screen:

If I select 2, it still prompts me for keyboard layout (I have keyboard=US-English in sysidcfg), language, etc.

What am I missing?

mm actually telling that what your keyboard is?

Not sure what you're getting at. The whole purpose of a jumpstart install is to NOT have to tell the installer what your keyboard is. FWIW, it's going to be a basic US 104 key, whatever VMware emulates.

the whole point of it asking you what it is - is so you can tell it. if it is not getting any further then asking you what is your keyboard, then what do you think you need to do in order to get it past that step?

answer the question or keep telling yourself it is not suppose to be doing that?

Oooookaaayy. Thanks for your input, but please don't waste any more of your time on silly little me. I'm obviously just too dumb to figure this out, and your superior task automation skills are simply beyond me. I'll wait for some other silly fool who uses Solaris to come along, and we can throw rocks at each other or something.

haha, polite insults will get you nowhere. have you even tried to input your keyboard to see if that gets you onto the next step in installing it? if no, then good luck in how you use your logical thought process.

step one: someone asks question:
step two: answer question.
step three:....

BW-userx,
Would you consider this a friendly/constructive response (especially considering the OP explicitly stated they are attempting to use JumpStart)?

--jeremy

If I select 2, it still prompts me for keyboard layout (I have keyboard=US-English in sysidcfg), language, etc.


if a piece of software request input I'd highly suggest trying to give that software the input it is asking for no matter what. then if it fails start asking questions. Not before hand.


Just googled it and the doc file states this
from what he is stating all the software is asking for is simply what the keyboard layout is.

Putting aside that you seem to be misunderstanding what JumpStart is supposed to accomplish, you've been a member long enough to know that LQ participation should be friendly and constructive.

--jeremy

In this one here
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26505_01/pdf/E28037.pdf

which is showing something on setting up the keyboard, Logic states if it is asking for the keyboard layout then it must be needing to know what it is.
in the google results it shows this
key word IF - the keyboard is self-identifying.


where was I not being constructive? questing anthers logic is not destructive. I even gave a simple example of simple logic

It's hard to tell but when the installer unexpectedly prompts for information, that generally means that information is missing from or is incorrect in the sysidcfg file, or that the sysidcfg file is corrupt somewhere earlier, or that a different sysidcfg file is used instead of the expected one.

I wrote mine from a couple of examples out there in Internet-land. I'm assuming that those examples worked. For each option, if there was any ambiguity, I looked it up in the oracle docs to make sure I'm passing a value they expect.

Is there a 'check' for sysidcfg, kinda like how 'check' evaluates the rules? Some way for me to validate that mine is valid? I can mount the NFS share from another host and read the file, so I doubt it's corrupt. It may be missing something important, or maybe for some reason the root image isn't pointing at the right export? Any other tool I can use to help troubleshoot? Is there a way to get to a console and shell with Solaris like with Red Hat?

For the next poor sod who runs into a jumpstart problem... the answer turned out to be:

I kid you not, curly braces with nothing between them.

If you're using it on non-Sun hardware then it probably can't self-configure itself, hence your problem.

Thanks for the feedback !