It would be hard to use ansible, cfengine or whatever while there no IP address on the new VM..... On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 10:47 AM, <cpolish at surewest.net> wrote: > On 2016-11-07 14:35, Bernard Fay wrote: > > Hi, > > > > We have a virtual environment based on XenServer. In this environment I > > defined a template for CentOS 7 servers. > > > > I would like to start a script a boot time to complete the configuration > of > > new VMs based on this template. How can I have a script started before > any > > login prompt to ask question to the user to complete the configuration > such > > as hostname, IP address, etc? > > Hi Bernard, > > My first impulse was "don't!", and that's probably the best > advise. A popular model is that the "firstboot" package takes > care of this at the first user login, and *nix systems sort of > depend on this "logged in users do stuff" model. > > Even better, use ansible, cfengine, chef, or puppet to automate > the task of setting things up. This is the _best_ solution and > you will eventually come back to it. > > But, the darker, cynical part of my brain, the part that says > "what, you're cutting down on coffee?" part, said "sure you > can". Here's how it _could_ be done. > > DON'T DO THIS. TURN BACK NOW. > > Replace /sbin/init with a shell script that does what you want. > It will be the first userland process started, have the console > for I/O, and run as root. At completion, restore the original > /sbin/init and reboot. Leave no traces behind. Do not document > your awful hack, others will use your words against you. > > Best regards, > -- > Chuck > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >