Don't delete a partition, if it doesn't exist...create it.

[Daniel Spannbauer]

Hello,

some "strange" target for an autoinstallation....
We want a partition on the system to store some settings in it which
should not be deleted at a new installation.

If the partition is not there it should be created.
Doesn't matter if the partition is at the beginning or the end of the
harddisk.

Any ideas how to do that?

Regards

Daniel

[686f6c6d]

Post by Daniel Spannbauer
We want a partition on the system to store some settings in it which
should not be deleted at a new installation.
If the partition is not there it should be created.
Doesn't matter if the partition is at the beginning or the end of the
harddisk.

Sorry, been meaning to answer for weeks. It is possible, hope you have
found it yourself in the meantime…
You can just set a partition to be kept with initialize=false for the
drive (http://doc.opensuse.org/projects/autoyast/configuration.html#idm139795988123840)
and create=false, format=false for the partition(s) in question
(http://doc.opensuse.org/projects/autoyast/configuration.html#idm139795988095376).

We use it to keep our /scratch. If you want, I can give you the
snippet of our live (12.3) profile next week.
--
Kind regards
Christopher 'm4z' Holm / 686f6c6d

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense
and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is
beautiful and his children smart." --H. L. Mencken

[Daniel Spannbauer]

Post by 686f6c6d

Post by Daniel Spannbauer
We want a partition on the system to store some settings in it which
should not be deleted at a new installation.
If the partition is not there it should be created.
Doesn't matter if the partition is at the beginning or the end of the
harddisk.

Sorry, been meaning to answer for weeks. It is possible, hope you have
found it yourself in the meantime…
You can just set a partition to be kept with initialize=false for the
drive (http://doc.opensuse.org/projects/autoyast/configuration.html#idm139795988123840)
and create=false, format=false for the partition(s) in question
(http://doc.opensuse.org/projects/autoyast/configuration.html#idm139795988095376).
We use it to keep our /scratch. If you want, I can give you the
snippet of our live (12.3) profile next week.

Hmmm,

create=false only works if there was a partition before the installation.

but what if the Disk is brand-new? Or if the disk was partitioned with a
different way?
Then I have to wipe the complete disk to get my partitioning on that disk.

So, I have only to reformat my disk if the partitioning is not as I want
it....

Regards

Daniel

[686f6c6d]

Post by Daniel Spannbauer
Hmmm,
create=false only works if there was a partition before the installation.
but what if the Disk is brand-new? Or if the disk was partitioned with a
different way?
Then I have to wipe the complete disk to get my partitioning on that disk.
So, I have only to reformat my disk if the partitioning is not as I want
it....

Ok, I misunderstood your initial mail. What you are trying to do isn't
easily possible AFAIK.

1. The brand-new case is pretty simple. In that case, you don't have
to worry about keeping the partition, you just create a complete
layout.
2. The case where you have a known layout and just want to keep that
one partition is our case, I have attached the relevant snippets of
our profile. (You can even decide during install if /scratch should be
kept; the machines get the profile snippets via rules.xml.) A similar
case is the one where in your known partition layout you resize your
existing partitions and then add your permanently-kept partition (I've
never done it, but IIRC it's one of the examples in the docs).
3. The hard case is the whatever-existing layout.
- I would assume this doesn't work automatically with
non-interactive AutoYAST, because the partitioning is only easy to
keep if the layout is already known (see attached files).
- So if you only have one or a few existing layouts (f.e. they
were all created from the same AutoYAST profile(s)) then you should be
fine, this is the "easy" (it is a bit of work
) case #2 above.
- If you have a large number of existing layouts, this becomes
unmanageable and I would assume reinstalling them as case #1 would be
easier. But I might be wrong, this is just how I would try to do it.
Merging/streamlining/converging the different cases might be
beneficial in the long run, if reinstalling and possible downtime is
an option.
- Another option might be to use the y2confirm boot parameter
during AutoYAST install and then resize and add manually (or to do
that from the installed system).

[Daniel Spannbauer]

Post by 686f6c6d

Post by Daniel Spannbauer
Hmmm,
create=false only works if there was a partition before the installation.
but what if the Disk is brand-new? Or if the disk was partitioned with a
different way?
Then I have to wipe the complete disk to get my partitioning on that disk.
So, I have only to reformat my disk if the partitioning is not as I want
it....

Ok, I misunderstood your initial mail. What you are trying to do isn't
easily possible AFAIK.
1. The brand-new case is pretty simple. In that case, you don't have
to worry about keeping the partition, you just create a complete
layout.
2. The case where you have a known layout and just want to keep that
one partition is our case, I have attached the relevant snippets of
our profile. (You can even decide during install if /scratch should be
kept; the machines get the profile snippets via rules.xml.) A similar
case is the one where in your known partition layout you resize your
existing partitions and then add your permanently-kept partition (I've
never done it, but IIRC it's one of the examples in the docs).
3. The hard case is the whatever-existing layout.
- I would assume this doesn't work automatically with
non-interactive AutoYAST, because the partitioning is only easy to
keep if the layout is already known (see attached files).
- So if you only have one or a few existing layouts (f.e. they
were all created from the same AutoYAST profile(s)) then you should be
fine, this is the "easy" (it is a bit of work…) case #2 above.
- If you have a large number of existing layouts, this becomes
unmanageable and I would assume reinstalling them as case #1 would be
easier. But I might be wrong, this is just how I would try to do it.
Merging/streamlining/converging the different cases might be
beneficial in the long run, if reinstalling and possible downtime is
an option.
- Another option might be to use the y2confirm boot parameter
during AutoYAST install and then resize and add manually (or to do
that from the installed system).

Hello,

we only have two cases:

1. Disk is completley empty or a system without rescue-partition is
installed......simply erease the whole disk an prepare it, but now with
rescue-partition

2. Disk already has a rescue partition: leave the rescue partition
untouched, with the other partitions do what you have to do

But I thin you are right...that couldn't be done by autoyast....

Regards

Daniel

[Mike Marion]

Post by Daniel Spannbauer
1. Disk is completley empty or a system without rescue-partition is
installed......simply erease the whole disk an prepare it, but now with
rescue-partition
2. Disk already has a rescue partition: leave the rescue partition
untouched, with the other partitions do what you have to do
But I thin you are right...that couldn't be done by autoyast....

Not easily, but using pre scripts and modifying your autoyast file you
could probably do it. I have stuff to handle cases where if an existing
host is being rejumped and matches some validation (some basic
"security" features) and has valid partitions, then the autoyast file
has the <partitioning-advanced> bits and re-uses partitions, else it
uses regular <partitioning> logic and wipes/initializes the disk.

So, in theory, you could do a pre-script to look for existing
partitions, and if you see one (and I'd validate it by mounting any
visible partitions and looking for (a) specific file(s) to make sure it
is a rescue partition, unless it uses a different partition type, then
that's easy to check) and have the resulting xml written based on seeing
said valid rescue partition or not.

But I also do a lot of pre-processing of the xml in our current imaging
process.