freebsd stable - Jan 2008 - Manual/Wiki or other documentation for PXE install mainly install.cfg?

Hi there, I?ve seen about a dozen different example files for the install.cfg
used to feed sysinstall automatic configuration data for pxe installations but I
cant figure out where people are getting the options they?re using from.

Is there a manual, wiki or otherwise documentation on what is ?valid? to put
into this file?

Also is this file at all scriptable?

We would like to be able to use the same install.cfg on all of our machines but
some of them have different NICs (i.e.) some have rl0, fxp0 can we use if
statements to detect?

Really our installs are pretty basic all we do is

Standard -> auto slice -> auto partition -> dhcp -> no extra
packages -> SSH enable -> install over FTP

So nothing hard about that ?

Its just figuring out the right syntax.

It would be nice if when you do an installation it creates an .install.cfg in
/root with the settings you could use to reproduce that same exact configuration
on other machines :-)

I'm kind of a dreamer though.

Thanks in advance for any tips/tricks!

-Drew

Drew Weaver wrote, on 1/21/2008 5:08 AM:
> Hi there, I?ve seen about a dozen different example files for the
> install.cfg used to feed sysinstall automatic configuration data
> for pxe installations but I cant figure out where people are
> getting the options they?re using from.
> 
> Is there a manual, wiki or otherwise documentation on what is
> ?valid? to put into this file?
Not that I'm aware of, other than the source itself.
> Also is this file at all scriptable?
Not that I am aware of.
> We would like to be able to use the same install.cfg on all of our
> machines but some of them have different NICs (i.e.) some have rl0,
> fxp0 can we use if statements to detect?
What I've seen most people doing is using the post-install features to
call a script after everything else is done.  Unfortunately, this
doesn't give you scriptable control over the NIC used.

I pregenerate an appropriate install.cfg based on system type, and
then create a DHCP group (I use isc-dhcpd) for all MACs of that type.
 I associate that group with a slightly different nfsroot (containing
the appropriate config file) for that family of machine.  It's not
pretty, but it works.
> Thanks in advance for any tips/tricks!
I found this post by Ceri Davies to be helpful:

http://typo.submonkey.net/articles/2006/02/12/having-a-bad-day


Royce

-- 
Royce D. Williams                                - IP Engineering, ACS
http://www.tycho.org/royce/                   - PGP: 3FC087DB/1776A531
   It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer. - Occam