CentOS - Oct 2008 - Problems with firstboot in CentOS 5

I'm trying to customize the firstboot process in CentOS 5 and have  
come across a few issues that are driving me nuts.  I'm sure they are  
all upstream issues, but I don't have a RHEL 5 system to verify  
them.  I had these customizations working in CentOS 4, but things  
that used to work then don't work now.

The main problem is that you can't validate user input.  This problem  
can be easily seen in the firstboot "Create User" module.  If you are
in this screen, deliberately enter mismatched passwords.  You will  
get a warning that the passwords do not match, but when you click OK  
to dismiss the warning you are taken to the next screen.  In CentOS  
4, firstboot would stay at the current screen until all user input  
had been validated.  If you look at the underlying Python code, when  
you returned "None" from the apply method it would not exit the  
module in CentOS 4, but it does in CentOS 5.

I also can't get the firstboot Display module to load.  It ships with  
"skipme = True", but setting it to false or removing that line  
altogether does not show the module.  It appears to me that there a  
lots of issues with firstboot in CentOS 5.  Actually, in my  
environment (~40 desktops), CentOS 5 has been far less stable than  
CentOS 4 (mostly Gnome issues with Terminal windows crashing and  
window "flickering").  I've reported some of these issues before
on
this list.  My servers seem to be rock stable, though.

Anyway, for now I will have to live with these issues.  Can I report  
these issues in the Red Hat bugzilla database or do I need to be a  
RHN subscriber to report bugs against RHEL5?  I suspect (but have not  
verified) that these issues have been addressed in Fedora already.

Alfred

Yesterday I wrote:
> I'm trying to customize the firstboot process in CentOS 5 and have  
> come across a few issues that are driving me nuts.  I'm sure they  
> are all upstream issues, but I don't have a RHEL 5 system to verify  
> them.  I had these customizations working in CentOS 4, but things  
> that used to work then don't work now.
>
> The main problem is that you can't validate user input.  This  
> problem can be easily seen in the firstboot "Create User" module.
> If you are in this screen, deliberately enter mismatched  
> passwords.  You will get a warning that the passwords do not match,  
> but when you click OK to dismiss the warning you are taken to the  
> next screen.  In CentOS 4, firstboot would stay at the current  
> screen until all user input had been validated.  If you look at the  
> underlying Python code, when you returned "None" from the apply  
> method it would not exit the module in CentOS 4, but it does in  
> CentOS 5.
>
> I also can't get the firstboot Display module to load.  It ships  
> with "skipme = True", but setting it to false or removing that
line
> altogether does not show the module.  It appears to me that there a  
> lots of issues with firstboot in CentOS 5.  Actually, in my  
> environment (~40 desktops), CentOS 5 has been far less stable than  
> CentOS 4 (mostly Gnome issues with Terminal windows crashing and  
> window "flickering").  I've reported some of these issues
before on
> this list.  My servers seem to be rock stable, though.
>
> Anyway, for now I will have to live with these issues.  Can I  
> report these issues in the Red Hat bugzilla database or do I need  
> to be a RHN subscriber to report bugs against RHEL5?  I suspect  
> (but have not verified) that these issues have been addressed in  
> Fedora already.
Has anyone seen these issues?  Is anybody using firstboot (or care  
about it)?  If there is there a better forum where I can go for  
firstboot questions, please let me know.  Ideally, I would like the  
upstream provider to acknowledge this issue and include a fix in the  
next update release, but how can I best make that happen?

Alfred