Hi everyone,
I'm attempting to create a preseed configuration file for automating the install of Ubuntu Server 10.04-4 LTS x64 via a bootable USB thumb drive and I've hit a major snag in the process. The debian-installer correctly processes the preseed file until it fails and asks for input at the following screen:
"[!] Select and install software
The installation CD does not contain full support for your language. Do you want to download the required packages from the Internet now? This includes spell-checking, dictionaries, and translations for various applications.
If you do not want to download this now, you may start the Language Selector after installation to install complete support for your language.
Download language support?
<Yes> <No>"
Thus far I've tried modifying the kernal boot line and tried making various tweaks to the preseed file, all to no avail. Any help is GREATLY appreciated as I'm out of ideas!! I've included my kernal boot line and preseed file (newestattempt.seed) below. I'm aware the preseed file may have additional errors/problems, but I can't resume my testing until this issue is fixed. Also, please note I've replaced sensitive information about my configuration with dummy examples:
Kernal boot line: kernel /install/vmlinuz append vga=normal initrd=/install/initrd.gz locale=en_US console-setup/ask_detect=false console-setup/layoutcode=us netcfg/wireless_wep= interface=eth0 hostname=example domain=example file=/cdrom/customseed/newestattempt.seed cdrom-detect/try-usb=true quiet --
Preseed file:
#### Contents of the preconfiguration file (for &releasename
### Localization
# Locale sets language and country.
d-i debian-installer/locale string en_US.UTF-8
# Keyboard selection.
# Disable automatic (interactive) keymap detection.
d-i console-setup/ask_detect boolean false
d-i console-setup/modelcode string pc105
d-i console-setup/layoutcode string us
# To select a variant of the selected layout (if you leave this out, the
# basic form of the layout will be used):
#d-i console-setup/variantcode string dvorak
### Network configuration
# 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 eth0
# 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 x.x.x.x
d-i netcfg/get_ipaddress string x.x.x.x
d-i netcfg/get_netmask string x.x.x.x
d-i netcfg/get_gateway string x.x.x.x
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 example
d-i netcfg/get_domain string example
# 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
# If non-free firmware is needed for the network or other hardware, you can
# configure the installer to always try to load it, without prompting. Or
# change to false to disable asking.
#d-i hw-detect/load_firmware boolean true
### Mirror settings
# 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 US
d-i mirror/http/hostname string us.archive.ubuntu.com
d-i mirror/http/directory string /ubuntu/
d-i mirror/http/proxy string
# Alternatively: by default, the installer uses CC.archive.ubuntu.com where
# CC is the ISO-3166-2 code for the selected country. You can preseed this
# so that it does so without asking.
d-i mirror/http/mirror select us.archive.ubuntu.com
# Suite to install.
#d-i mirror/suite string &releasename;
# Suite to use for loading installer components (optional).
#d-i mirror/udeb/suite string &releasename;
# Components to use for loading installer components (optional).
#d-i mirror/udeb/components multiselect main, restricted
### Clock and time zone setup
# 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/Pacific
# Controls whether to use NTP to set the clock during the install
d-i clock-setup/ntp boolean false
# NTP server to use. The default is almost always fine here.
#d-i clock-setup/ntp-server string ntp.example.com
### Partitioning
# If the system has free space you can choose to only partition that space.
# Alternatives: custom, some_device, some_device_crypto, some_device_lvm.
#d-i partman-auto/init_automatically_partition select biggest_free
# Alternatively, you can specify a disk to partition. The device name must
# be given in traditional non-devfs format.
# Note: A disk must be specified, unless the system has only one disk.
# For example, to use the first SCSI/SATA hard disk:
#d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/sda
# 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-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true
# The same applies to pre-existing software RAID array:
d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true
# And the same goes for the confirmation to write the lvm partitions.
d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true
# For LVM partitioning, you can select how much of the volume group to use
# for logical volumes.
#d-i partman-auto-lvm/guided_size string max
#d-i partman-auto-lvm/guided_size string 10GB
#d-i partman-auto-lvm/guided_size string 50%
# You can choose one of the three predefined partitioning recipes:
# - atomic: all files in one partition
# - home: separate /home partition
# - multi: separate /home, /usr, /var, and /tmp partitions
d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select atomic
# 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{ } \
# .
# If you just want to change the default filesystem from ext3 to something
# else, you can do that without providing a full recipe.
#d-i partman/default_filesystem string ext4
# This makes partman automatically partition without confirmation, provided
# that you told it what to do using one of the methods above.
d-i partman/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
### Controlling how partitions are mounted
# The default is to mount by UUID, but you can also choose "traditional" to
# use traditional device names, or "label" to try filesystem labels before
# falling back to UUIDs.
#d-i partman/mount_style select uuid
### Base system installation
# The kernel image (meta) package to be installed; "none" can be used if no
# kernel is to be installed.
d-i base-installer/kernel/image string linux-server
### Account setup
# Skip creation of a root account (normal user account will be able to
# use sudo). The default is false; preseed this to true if you want to set
# a root password.
#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 example
d-i passwd/username string example
# 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 examplehash.
# Create the first user with the specified UID instead of the default.
#d-i passwd/user-uid string 1010
# The installer will warn about weak passwords. If you are sure you know
# what you're doing and want to override it, uncomment this.
d-i user-setup/allow-password-weak boolean true
# 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
# Set to true if you want to encrypt the first user's home directory.
d-i user-setup/encrypt-home boolean false
### Apt setup
# You can choose to install restricted and universe software, or to install
# software from the backports repository.
#d-i apt-setup/restricted boolean true
#d-i apt-setup/universe boolean true
#d-i apt-setup/backports boolean true
# Uncomment this if you don't want to use a network mirror.
#d-i apt-setup/use_mirror boolean false
# Select which update services to use; define the mirrors to be used.
# Values shown below are the normal defaults.
#d-i apt-setup/services-select multiselect security
#d-i apt-setup/security_host string security.ubuntu.com
#d-i apt-setup/security_path string /ubuntu
# Additional repositories, local[0-9] available
#d-i apt-setup/local0/repository string \
#
http://local.server/ubuntu &releasename; 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
### Package selection
tasksel tasksel/first multiselect ubuntu-server, standard
#tasksel tasksel/first multiselect lamp-server, print-server
#tasksel tasksel/first multiselect kubuntu-desktop
# Individual additional packages to install
d-i pkgsel/include string ssh build-essential vim emacs23-lucid traceroute nmap
# Whether to upgrade packages after debootstrap.
# Allowed values: none, safe-upgrade, full-upgrade
#d-i pkgsel/upgrade select none
# Language pack selection
#d-i pkgsel/language-packs multiselect de, en, zh
# Policy for applying updates. May be "none" (no automatic updates),
# "unattended-upgrades" (install security updates automatically), or
# "landscape" (manage system with Landscape).
d-i pkgsel/update-policy select none
# 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
# By default, the system's locate database will be updated after the
# installer has finished installing most packages. This may take a while, so
# if you don't want it, you can set this to "false" to turn it off.
#d-i pkgsel/updatedb boolean true
### Boot loader installation
# 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)
# Optional password for grub, either in clear text
#d-i grub-installer/password password r00tme
#d-i grub-installer/password-again password r00tme
# or encrypted using an MD5 hash, see grub-md5-crypt(.
#d-i grub-installer/password-crypted password [MD5 hash]
### Finishing up the installation
# During installations from serial console, the regular virtual consoles
# (VT1-VT6) are normally disabled in /etc/inittab. Uncomment the next
# line to prevent this.
#d-i finish-install/keep-consoles boolean true
# 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
# This is how to make the installer shutdown when finished, but not
# reboot into the installed system.
#d-i debian-installer/exit/halt boolean true
# This will power off the machine instead of just halting it.
#d-i debian-installer/exit/poweroff boolean true
### X configuration
# 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 ati
# 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
### Preseeding other packages
# 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
#### Advanced options
### Running custom commands during 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 immediately before the partitioner starts. It may be
# useful to apply dynamic partitioner preseeding that depends on the state
# of the disks (which may not be visible when preseed/early_command runs).
#d-i partman/early_command string debconf-set partman-auto/disk "$(list-devices disk | head -n1)"
# 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
Thanks,
-Snipe
