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Autoinst File

The autoinst.xml file, similar to response.ni used in NetWare, is an XML file with the parameters needed for AutoYaST.

This file can be created by hand, which I don't recommend because it's not a simple task. But it need to be editied by hand as there is no way to automatically regenerate it based on changed server configuration. you can use XML spy or other XML editor to that but any advanced HTML editor like Frontpage can do the job too.

The control file enables you to have much more granular control of system options, that is, up to the /etc/sysconfig settings, as well as the settings for the installation itself. The following list of options are available to you:

Software setup:

Online update (if enabled):

What time of day

If download patches only or whole packages

Software packages: Which group of packages to install. After you have selected your choice from the following list, you also have the option to do a detailed selection of packages:

Minimum system

Minimum graphical system (without KDE)

Full installation

Default system

Hardware setup:

Partitioning for hard drives, use RAID, LVM, or both.

Printer configuration: Use direct connects, CUPS, LPD-style, and so on.

Sound card configuration.

Graphics card and monitor configuration: Enable X Window System, 3D support, color depth, display resolution, and so on.

System setup:

Boot loader configuration: Set up GRUB, location, and sections.

General options: Language support, time zone, hardware clock, keyboard, mouse, and so on.

Report and logging options: Enable or disable logging of messages, warnings, and errors.

Restore module: Restore files from an archive device or location as part of the installation process.

Runlevel editor: Configure the default run level and what services to enable or disable for each run level.

/etc/sysconfig editor: Preconfigure kernel values.

Network device setup: Set up the type of network device and whether to use DHCP or static IP, set up host name and name server, routing information, and others.

Network service setup: Configure DHCP server, DNS server, host names, HTTP server, LDAP server/client, NFS server/client, NIS server/client, Samba server/client, and others.

Security and users setup: Configure CAs, certificates, firewalls, VPN, security settings, and create and edit users.

Miscellaneous setup: Configure or preload customized application configuration files, set up custom preinstallation and post-installation scripts.

When doing the partitioning, note that the default size it uses when you allocate a size for a partition is in kilobytes (KB). You can also enter mb, MB, gb, or GB to the end of the partition size.

The best use of editing the configuration file manually is probably for adding your own customised packages to the installation. Back in the SuSE Server Setup section we describe how to add your own customised packages to your install server. Here, we describe how to access those packages using the configuration file so they can be automatically installed with the rest of the system.

You should be able to locate a <software> section in your basic configuration file in your editor. You can use a sub-tag inside the software section called the <extra_packages> tag which can be used as in the following example:

<software>
        <extra_packages>
                <package_location>
                        custom
                </package_location>
                <packages config:type="list">
                        <package>{Your package name}</package>
                        <package>{Another Package}</package>
                </packages>
        <extra_packages>
        <base>Default<base>
<software>

The package location is written as custom which describes the directory under the suse directory of you install server where you have put your custom packages, in our example this would be /install/suse/custom, but you only need to write custom here.

You can include as many package tags under the packages section as you wish. Use one package tag for each custom package you want to include in your config file and install on the client machine.

The base tag at the bottom should be left as you configured it during the basic configuration.

Save your modified configuration file and it will then be ready to use in your installations as described below