On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 01:38:02PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote: > > > > I am planning on shipping Linux boxen with Debian preinstalled. > > > > > > > > When the customer unpacks the box and fires it up, what is the > > > > best way to allow him to reconfigure the sorts of things that > > > > one normally configures as part of an install: > > > > > > > > * Hostname > > This is set by the initial install, and is not reconfigurable > with dpkg-reconfigure. You can easily tell this is the case by > making a note of when the installation process asks you for > this information. If it is before the first reboot you cannot > reconfigure it with dpkg-reconfigure.
Ah ha! Now we're getting somewhere. > Run base-config. Anything it asks you after the first reboot and before > you select packages to install is asked by base-config. Thanks! That's one piece of the puzzle I hadn't yet found. > > > > * SSH key generation > > Remove old ssh hosts keys and dpkg-reconfigure ssh. Anything that asks > you a question after you select packages to install can be reconfigured > by reconfiguring the package that it says is asking you the question at > that point. Some packages like ssh may not normally allow a reconfigure > to blow away generally crucial information like ssh host keys. That one I had figured out. I was thinking of modifying the init.d script for ssh so that it generates host keys if they don't exist (my non-Debian systems all work that way). That way I can just ship machines w/o keys, and they get generated if needed. > In general: Run an install, take notes of every thing you want > the customer to be able to reconfigure later, divide into the > three basic categories listed above, write or find programs to > handle the first set since debian has nothing good that will > serve yet, use base-config for the secod set, and > dpkg-reconfigure for the third set. Thanks. That clears things up. I might do something using newt to handle the first set. -- Grant Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
