[ipxe-devel] Debian installer doesn't load preseed

[Ghassan Elrayah]

Hi,

I am facing a problem loading the preseed file for Debian installation. 
The unattended installation stops always at the mirror country option 
which is defined in my preseed. The preseed file is in the new server 
either in /tmp or under / depending on the path I specified. But the 
installer just ignores it. I don't know if its a Debian bug or an ipxe 
issue. I am not using UEFI rather BIOS.

Here is my menu.ipxe

:d10-dc-node
set base-url 
https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/amd64/daily/netboot/debian-installer/amd64
kernel ${base-url}/linux auto=true 
preseed/url=tftp://my.ipxe.server/preseed/debian_buster_node.seed
initrd ${base-url}/initrd.gz
initrd tftp://my.ipxe.server/preseed/debian_buster_node.seed 
/tmp/debian_buster_node.seed
imgargs linux netcfg/choose_interface=eno1 auto-install/enable=true 
fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive debian-installer=en_US.UTF-8 
auto locale=en_US.UTF-8 console-setup/ask_detect=false 
kbd-chooser/method=us keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap=us 
keyboard-configuration/modelcode=pc105 keyboard-configuration/layout=USA 
keyboard-configuration/variant=USA BOOT_DEBUG=2 --
boot

I also tried it this way:

:d10-dc-node
set base-url 
https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/amd64/daily/netboot/debian-installer/amd64
kernel ${base-url}/linux
initrd ${base-url}/initrd.gz
initrd tftp://my.ipxe.server/preseed/debian_buster_node.seed 
/tmp/debian_buster_node.seed
imgargs linux netcfg/choose_interface=eno1 auto-install/enable=true 
fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive debian-installer=en_US.UTF-8 
auto locale=en_US.UTF-8 console-setup/ask_detect=false 
kbd-chooser/method=us keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap=us 
keyboard-configuration/modelcode=pc105 keyboard-configuration/layout=USA 
keyboard-configuration/variant=USA BOOT_DEBUG=2 --
boot

and this way:

:d10-dc-node
set base-url 
https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/amd64/daily/netboot/debian-installer/amd64
kernel ${base-url}/linux
initrd ${base-url}/initrd.gz
imgargs linux auto 
preseed/url=tftp://my.ipxe.server/preseed/debian_buster_node.seed 
netcfg/choose_interface=eno1 auto-install/enable=true fb=false 
debconf/frontend=noninteractive debian-installer=en_US.UTF-8 auto 
locale=en_US.UTF-8 console-setup/ask_detect=false kbd-chooser/method=us 
keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap=us 
keyboard-configuration/modelcode=pc105 keyboard-configuration/layout=USA 
keyboard-configuration/variant=USA BOOT_DEBUG=2 --
boot

But the result is always the same, after configuring the language, the 
locales and keyboard, I have to choose the interface, because the server 
has four of them and I cannot preseed the correct one. Then I enter the 
hostname manually which is desired, since the preseed is for hardware 
server installation as Ganeti node, but then the mirror defined in the 
preseed is not picked neither the further steps of the installation process.

Here is the relvant part of the preseed:

### Keyboard
d-i console-setup/ask_detect boolean                 false
d-i keyboard-configuration/layout select                  USA
d-i keyboard-configuration/variant select                  USA
d-i keyboard-configuration/modelcode string                  pc105
d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select                  us
d-i keyboard-configuration/layout string                  English

### Locales
d-i debconf/language string                  en_US
d-i debian-installer/country string                  DE
d-i debian-installer/language string                  en_US
d-i debian-installer/locale string                  en_US.UTF-8
d-i localechooser/supported-locales multiselect             en_US.UTF-8, 
de_DE.UTF-8

### Time zone
d-i time/zone string                  UTC
d-i clock-setup/utc boolean                 true
d-i clock-setup/utc-auto boolean                 true

### Network
d-i netcfg/choose_interface select                  eno1
d-i netcfg/wireless_wep                             string

### Mirror settings
d-i mirror/protocol string                  http
d-i mirror/country string                  DE
d-i mirror/http/hostname string                  ftp.de.debian.org
d-i mirror/http/directory string                  /debian
d-i mirror/http/proxy string                  http://10.99.54.80:8128/

d-i apt-setup/contrib boolean                 true
d-i apt-setup/non-free boolean                 true
d-i apt-setup/services-select multiselect             security, updates
d-i apt-setup/security_host string                  security.debian.org

Thank you for your support

-- 

Ghassan Elrayah
System Engineer