To summarize, I run a lab of mixed hardware with a combination of Red Hat, Windows and VMware installs being served by PXE server. I want to add SLES to the mix. I’ve been playing with the autoyast functionality in SLES 10.4 and 11.2 and have begun building one that I intend to use to deploy with the PXE server. Without the autoyast config file I’ve made, the install completes without issues. If I use a full autoyast, it also installs fine. The caveat is that I want to automate only a select few things while leaving the rest up to whoever is installing so that they get as close to a real installation as possible while still automating a few aspects that I don’t trust the users to remember to do every time. I’ve seen conflicting documentation on whether what I’m about to ask is possible, so I figured I’d post here to hopefully get a final word on whether this would work or not.
I want to use an autoyast file to automate the configuration of the NIC ports to DHCP, set the root account to a specific password, not prompt for additional users, I’d like the hostname to be something random like it does without an autoyast xml and automatically provide a repo to an HTTP server I am running on the network and that is all. I want the rest of the install to be user driven. I want the standard prompts for everything else, such as partitioning and package installation to be prompted like a normal install. When I attempted this with the autoyast app itself, it complained about me not configuring several things. Is it possible with autoyast to only automate these particular parts while leavig the rest as user configurable during the installation? If not, will autoyast function properly if I provide only a post installation script to do at least some of these things?