ay_faq.xml

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<!DOCTYPE appendix [
  <!ENTITY % entities SYSTEM "generic-entities.ent">
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<?xml-stylesheet href="urn:x-suse:xslt:profiling:docbook50-profile.xsl"
 type="text/xml"
 title="Profiling step"?><appendix xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="5.0" xml:id="app-ay-faq">
 <title>&ay; FAQ&mdash;frequently asked questions</title>
 <info>
    <meta name="description" its:translate="yes">Explore common questions and their answers on mass deployment with &ay;</meta>
  <dm:docmanager xmlns:dm="urn:x-suse:ns:docmanager">
   <dm:bugtracker/>
   <dm:translation>yes</dm:translation>
  </dm:docmanager>
 <revhistory xml:id="rh-app-ay-faq">
   <revision>
     <date>2026-04-14</date>
     <revdescription>
       <para/>
     </revdescription>
   </revision>
 </revhistory>
</info>
 <qandaset>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-invoke">
   <question>
    <para>
     How do I invoke an &ay; installation?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     On all &productname; versions, the automatic installation gets invoked by
     adding <literal>autoyast=&lt;PATH_TO_PROFILE&gt;</literal> to the kernel
     parameter list. So for example adding
     <literal>autoyast=<replaceable>http://MYSERVER/MYCONFIG.xml</replaceable></literal>
     will start an automatic installation where the profile with the &ay;
     configuration gets fetched from the Web server
     <literal>myserver</literal>. See <xref linkend="invoking-autoinst"/> for
     more information.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-profile">
   <question>
    <para>
     What is an &ay; profile?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     A profile is the &ay; configuration file. The content of the &ay; profile
     determines how the system will be configured and which packages will get
     installed. This includes partitioning, network setup, and software
     sources, to name but a few. Almost everything that can be configured with
     &yast; in a running system can also be configured in an &ay; profile. The
     profile format is an ASCII XML file.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-create-profile">
   <question>
    <para>
     How do I create an &ay; profile?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para os="sles;sled;osuse">
     The easiest way to create an &ay; profile is to use an existing
     &productname; system as a template. On an already installed system, start
     <menuchoice> <guimenu>&yast;</guimenu> <guimenu>Miscellaneous</guimenu>
     <guimenu>Autoinstallation</guimenu></menuchoice>. Now select <menuchoice>
     <guimenu>Tools</guimenu> <guimenu>Create Reference Profile</guimenu>
     </menuchoice> from the menu. Choose the system components you want to
     include in the profile. Alternatively, create a profile containing the
     complete system configuration by running <command>sudo yast
     clone_system</command> from the command line.
    </para>
    <para os="sles;sled;osuse">
     Both methods will create the file <filename>/root/autoinst.xml</filename>.
     The version created on the command line can be used to set up an identical
     clone of the system on which the profile was created. However, usually you
     will want to adjust the file to make it possible to install several
     machines that are very similar, but not identical. This can be done by
     adjusting the profile using your favorite text/XML editor.
    </para>
    <para os="slemicro">
     You have to create the &ay; profile manually. For details refer to
     <xref linkend="CreateProfile-Manual"/>.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-check-profile">
   <question>
    <para>
     How can I check the syntax of a created &ay; profile?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     The most efficient way to check your created &ay; profile is by using
     <command>jing</command> or <command>xmllint</command>.
    </para>
    <para>
     See <xref linkend="CreateProfile-Manual"/> for details.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-small-profile">
   <question>
    <para>
     What is smallest &ay; profile that makes sense?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     If a section has not been defined in the &ay; profile the settings of the
     general &yast; installation proposal will be used. However, you need to
     specify at least the &rootuser; password to be able to log in to the
     machine after the installation.
    </para>
<screen>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;!DOCTYPE profile&gt;
&lt;profile xmlns="http://www.suse.com/1.0/yast2ns" xmlns:config="http://www.suse.com/1.0/configns"&gt;
  &lt;users config:type="list"&gt;
    &lt;user&gt;
      &lt;encrypted config:type="boolean"&gt;false&lt;/encrypted&gt;
      &lt;user_password&gt;linux&lt;/user_password&gt;
      &lt;username&gt;root&lt;/username&gt;
    &lt;/user&gt;
  &lt;/users&gt;
&lt;/profile&gt;</screen>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-auto-sound">
   <question>
    <para>
     How do I do an automatic installation with autodetection of my sound card?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     Use the following <literal>sound</literal> section in your profile:
    </para>
<screen>&lt;sound&gt;
  &lt;autoinstall config:type="boolean"&gt;true&lt;/autoinstall&gt;
  &lt;configure_detected config:type="boolean"&gt;true&lt;/configure_detected&gt;
&lt;/sound&gt;</screen>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-cd">
   <question>
    <para>
     I want to install from DVD only. Where do I put the &ay; profile?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     Put the profile in the root of the DVD. Refer to it with
     <literal>file:///<replaceable>PROFILE</replaceable>.xml</literal>.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-test-merge">
   <question>
    <para>
     How can I test a merging process on the command line?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     To merge two profiles, <filename>a.xml</filename> with
     <filename>base.xml</filename>, run the following command:
    </para>
<screen>&prompt.user;/usr/bin/xsltproc --novalid --param replace "'false'" \
--param dontmerge1 "'package'" --param with "'a.xml'" --output out.xml \
/usr/share/autoinstall/xslt/merge.xslt base.xml</screen>
    <para>
     This requires sections in both profiles to be in alphabetical order
     (&lt;software&gt;, for example, needs to be listed after &lt;add-on&gt;).
     If you have created the profile with &yast;, profiles are automatically
     sorted correctly.
    </para>
    <para>
     The <literal>dontmerge1</literal> parameter is optional and an example of
     what to do when you use the <literal>dont_merge</literal> element in your
     profile. See <xref linkend="merging"/> for more information.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry os="sles;sled;osuse" xml:id="qa-ay-zypper">
   <question>
    <para>
     Can I call Zypper from scripts?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     Zypper can only be called from &ay; init scripts, because during the
     post-script phase, &yast; still has an exclusive lock on the RPM database.
    </para>
    <para>
     If you really need to use other script types (for example a post-script)
     you will need to break the lock at your own risk:
    </para>
<screen>&lt;post-scripts config:type="list"&gt;
  &lt;script&gt;
    &lt;filename&gt;yast_clone.sh&lt;/filename&gt;
    &lt;interpreter&gt;shell&lt;/interpreter&gt;
    &lt;location/&gt;
    &lt;feedback config:type="boolean"&gt;false&lt;/feedback&gt;
    &lt;source&gt;&lt;![CDATA[#!/bin/sh
mv /var/run/zypp.pid /var/run/zypp.sav
zypper in foo
mv /var/run/zypp.sav /var/run/zypp.pid
]]&gt;&lt;/source&gt;
  &lt;/script&gt;
&lt;/post-scripts&gt;</screen>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry>
   <question>
    <para>
     Is the order of sections in an &ay; profile important?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     Actually the order is not important. The order of sections in the profile
     has no influence on the &ay; workflow. However, to
     <emphasis>merge</emphasis> different profiles, sections need to be in
     alphabetical order.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-insecure">
   <question>
    <para>
     <command>linuxrc</command> blocks the installation with <literal>File not
     signed</literal>. I need to manually interact.
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     <command>linuxrc</command> found an unsigned file, such as a driver
     update. To use an unsigned file, you can suppress that message by passing
     <literal>insecure=1</literal> to the <command>linuxrc</command> parameter
     list (together with the <literal>autoyast=...</literal> parameter).
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry xml:id="qa-ay-net">
   <question>
    <para>
     I want to install from DVD/USB/HD but fetch the XML file from the network.
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     You need to pass <literal>ifcfg</literal> to <command>linuxrc</command>.
     This is required to set up the network, otherwise &ay; cannot download the
     profile from the remote host. See <xref linkend="ay-adv-network"/> for
     more information.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry os="sles;sled;osuse" xml:id="qa-ay-nfsroot">
   <question>
    <para>
     Is installation onto an NFS root (<filename>/</filename>) possible?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     Yes, but it is more complex than other methods. The environment (DHCP,
     TFTP, etc.) must be set up very carefully. The &ay; profile must look like
     the following:
    </para>
<screen>&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
&lt;!DOCTYPE profile&gt;
&lt;profile xmlns="http://www.suse.com/1.0/yast2ns" xmlns:config="http://www.suse.com/1.0/configns"&gt;
  &lt;partitioning config:type="list"&gt;
    &lt;drive&gt;
      &lt;device&gt;/dev/nfs&lt;/device&gt;
      &lt;initialize config:type="boolean"&gt;false&lt;/initialize&gt;
      &lt;type config:type="symbol"&gt;CT_NFS&lt;/type&gt;
      &lt;partitions config:type="list"&gt;
        &lt;partition&gt;
          &lt;filesystem config:type="symbol"&gt;nfs&lt;/filesystem&gt;
          &lt;fstopt&gt;nolock&lt;/fstopt&gt;
          &lt;device&gt;10.10.1.53:/tmp/m4&lt;/device&gt;
          &lt;mount&gt;/&lt;/mount&gt;
        &lt;/partition&gt;
      &lt;/partitions&gt;
      &lt;use&gt;all&lt;/use&gt;
    &lt;/drive&gt;
  &lt;/partitioning&gt;
&lt;/profile&gt;</screen>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
  <qandaentry>
   <question>
    <para>
     Where can I ask questions which have not been answered here?
    </para>
   </question>
   <answer>
    <para>
     There is an &ay; mailing list where you can post your questions. Join us
     at <link xlink:href="https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-autoinstall/"/>.
    </para>
   </answer>
  </qandaentry>
 </qandaset>
</appendix>