[CentOS] interactive %pre in kickstart?

Wed Mar 21 01:32:42 UTC 2007
Florin Andrei <florin at andrei.myip.org>

Karanbir Singh wrote:
> 
> the 'normal' way to do such config stuff is via a module for firstboot, 
> which runs the first time a machine boots....

I want the user to enter as much as possible at the very beginning of 
the process, then walk away and the installation should continue after 
that 100% unattended.
It's very handy if you have to build dozens of servers ASAP. ;-)

> since you are going this in %pre rather than %post, i presume some of 
> the choices a user makes at this stage will influence the installer in 
> someway ?

Yes. All systems are the same, except a few small differences. It's 
those differences that the installer must ask.

And now I have the solution.
Apparently, %pre is displayed on tty3, but the input is still on tty1. 
Ugly, but we have to deal with it. So, this is a %pre that works fine:

%pre
chvt 3
exec < /dev/tty3 > /dev/tty3
echo -n "Enter blah: "
read blah
echo $blah > /tmp/ks-blah
chvt 1
exec < /dev/tty1 > /dev/tty1

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/