Our Initial Question:
Q. What is the equivalent of a "Kickstart" (or preseed) file in OS X? What file can you create with OS X that would customize an OS X Install AT, or before, Install-time?
- My initial thought was the InstallerChoices.xml file - but as far as I'm aware that file isn't 'read' by the OS X Installer during Installation - it has to be submitted as an argument.
Greg responded to me with the below:
"Yes, I suppose the ChoiceChangesXML file (of whatever name) is the closest analogue of the Kickstart file.
You could create a workflow that curled an InstallerChoices.xml file and used it to install; there's no way to get Apple's Installer to do that for you that I know of. But if you are using disk-free NetBooting, you can do almost anything at that point."
There are articles here, and here on Netbooting from Linux machines. Ohad Levy is the author of a tool called The Foreman http://theforeman.org and is possibly looking at rolling this solution into The Foreman. What might be the best way to do this?
Feel free to comment below:
talked to ohadlevy on irc today, this gist is getting long now but ohwell :-)
beddari: ohadlevy: did you get any more comments om Mac-support?
ohadlevy: beddari: did you see the gist?
beddari: ohadlevy: yea me and glarizza kind of startet that
ohadlevy: beddari: honestly I didnt have much time to go over the way of how the image is created
beddari: ohadlevy: been thinking about it last few days as I'm in a situation where I'm dependent on DeployStudio and I don't quite like it
marcellods: ohadlevy: I do it now, but I think it's unhandy and I can't trigger. Foreman UI would be better.
ohadlevy: beddari: but for me there are a few high level questions
ohadlevy: 1. can we provide users a script to generate an image (and not to that touch image too often)
ohadlevy: 2. can we generate some sort of a template, which implement JeOS (just enough OS) to run puppet
ohadlevy: 3. can it be done automatically, or does it require some actions from the user (like boot from network vs boot from local disk)
beddari: 1,2,3 can all be done automatically
beddari: you would need to start with either the OS source DVD or a pristine computer as the source
beddari: I would prefer the DVD
beddari: and then you need to generate both a netboot image and what you call JeOS
ohadlevy: beddari: cant we do it over the network instead?
ohadlevy: or you are talking about image creation?
beddari: im talking about the creation yes
beddari: you could save both of those directly over the network using nfs of course
beddari: but you need to be able to use the os specific utils to generate the images
beddari: and as I say, you need two items, the netboot image (a reduced os image) and the JeOS image to be put on clients
beddari: you could - most likely, I havent tried yet - put Puppet on the netboot image
beddari: thats of course totally out of wack compared to kickstart-like workflows :-)
beddari: and thats for the image generation ..
ohadlevy: beddari: if we can provide a script to generate the image I think it would be fine
beddari: yes
ohadlevy: then we would probably need to change some files on the tftp server?
ohadlevy: and then the only question is how to feed in some sort of a post script
beddari: yea documented already at that edu link you had
ohadlevy: for example, maybe the image could do something like
ohadlevy: curl /script_for_mac | sh
ohadlevy: beddari: we do something similar in solaris
beddari: yea that is comparable technically
ohadlevy: beddari: my overall goal is:
ohadlevy: 1. user login in foreman, to define his host
ohadlevy: 2. network boot his mac
ohadlevy: 3. os is installed + puppet running
beddari: yes
ohadlevy: without any manual steps in between
beddari: right now, 2 is a bit awkward, as you'd need a special keypress to network boot
beddari: you could skip that but then you'd need to run a local utility on the client first to tell it to netboot next
ohadlevy: beddari: ok, thats an option too
ohadlevy: beddari: we do that with grub
beddari: yup but first time around you'd need the keypress or something else
beddari: :-)
ohadlevy: wont it default to network if it cant?
ohadlevy: or there is always an os installed?
beddari: no defaulting to network no, and os is always installed from apple
beddari: so manual intervention is needed in any of those two forms, an util that you run or a keypress at startup
ohadlevy: beddari: ok, I think we can live with that fore the moment, we are talking about users machines, so its not like servers that you need to go to a remtoe datacenter or something
beddari: this is something a lot of people complain about :-)
beddari: so, for me, the ideal way of solving this as open source would be if there existed a separate project for generating the netboot-image
beddari: right now noone does this as open source
beddari: deploystudio does it free but closed
beddari: the code however is available to read, its bash :-P
ohadlevy: :-)
beddari: they have the most detailed knowledge of this AFAIK
beddari: so I guess someone could just ask them for permission
beddari: a project like this could possibly live as python, as that is what most mac sysadmins use
ohadlevy: beddari: not ruby? ;-)
beddari: hmm nah for some reason python is mostly used among sysadmins
beddari: i guess it is to keep distance from the rails guys
beddari: if you get the netboot image done, then you could curl a script into that that did the imaging and post-installed puppet as the last step .. the installer-binary actually lets you set another device/path as root for the install
beddari: as long as the package is created correctly, which it is, for Puppets case :-)