RFE: Support per OS variant (os_id & variant_id) configuration profiles

[travier]

See:

• Initial discussion in data/profile.d: Add profiles for KDE & Kinoite Spins anaconda#3577
• Current configuration: https://github.com/rhinstaller/initial-setup/blob/master/data/10-initial-setup.conf
• Code:

  initial-setup/initial_setup/__init__.py

  Lines 110 to 112 in 1ba27b4

  	conf.set_from_detected_profile(
  	get_os_release_value("ID")
  	)

[poncovka]

Hi, the current solution is sufficient for use cases we know about. We cannot use Anaconda's profiles for variants, because they can be too installer-specific and not suitable for Initial Setup. Initial Setup would have to use it's own profiles to make the change safe.

I am not sure what is your use case. Which configuration changes in Initial Setup do you plan for Fedora Kinoite?

[travier]

From rhinstaller/anaconda#3577 (comment), I understood that I could work on Initial Setup to have a per variant set of spokes configuration. Those profiles would be specific to initial setup and not the ones used for Anaconda. Did I misunderstood something?

[M4rtinK]

Initial Setup has a "reconfiguration" mode, that looks like this:

Is this spoke selection sufficient for your usacese ? It's pretty much all the spokes we can safely run on a freshly booted system (eq. no storage spoke, etc.).

If this was sufficient for your usecase, just make sure there is /root/anaconda-ks.cfg on the system when it boots, that contains firstboot --reconfig.

(This is the Anaconda output kickstart file, so it can contain also other stuff, but the firstboot command is what activates the reconfiguration mode in Initial Setup when it parses the file.)

[travier]

This looks like what we need. So I should just add firstboot --reconfig to the KDE kickstarts?

[travier]

https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/pull-request/840

[M4rtinK]

This looks like what we need. So I should just add firstboot --reconfig to the KDE kickstarts?

Yep, that should be it - just make sure the command is in /root/anaconda-ks.cfg when the installed system boots and that should be it. :)

EDIT: That's the kickstart that generates the live image, right ? That would not propagate to the target system.

Rather, I would suggest using one of the drop files Initial Setup supports to trigger the reconfig mode. Initial Setup look for these files at startup and enables the reconfig mode if at least one of these files exists.

The %post in the KDE live kickstart would then look like this:

%post
touch /etc/reconfigSys
%end

[travier]

Thanks for the review. Indeed, this will only enable Initial Setup for the LiveISO which is not what we want.

Would the %post be run during Anaconda setup and not the LiveISO setup? It seems to me that changing this file will only impact the LiveISO. I don't know yet how I could impact the kickstart used for the actual installation.

[M4rtinK]

Would the %post be run during Anaconda setup and not the LiveISO setup? It seems to me that changing this file will only impact the LiveISO. I don't know yet how I could impact the kickstart used for the actual installation.

Live installations use the same rootfs to both boot from (so that users can try the distro) as well as to install on the target system. Anaconda basically creates a storage layout on the target system and then uses rsync to copy content of the live image rootfs to the newly created storage.

And, if I understand the Fedora live image creation process correctly, the kickstarts in the fedora-kickstarts repository are used to create the live image and its rootfs. So if you add a %post script that creates /etc/reconfigSys on the live image rootfs, the /etc/reconfigSys file will then be rsynced to the target system by Anaconda during the installation process and Initial setup will then find it after reboot.

CCing @AdamWill @bcl to possibly confirm I'm not totally wrong about the Fedora live image creation process. ;-)

[travier]

Thanks for the interesting answer! So this would work for the KDE Live.

However, AFAIK, this is not how the Silverblue / Kinoite installation process work (but I might definitely be wrong there) so we might some other tweaks.

[AdamWill]

Martin is basically right, but indeed exactly because the live %post stuff only applies to live images - not to other install paths, including install from netinst or a spin like Kinoite - we don't generally do this kind of customization there. Customization in there is usually things we only need to do for live installs.

If the goal is to have initial-setup always run in the reconfiguration mode on first boot of a freshly-installed KDE/Kinoite system - as opposed to only running if no root password or admin user was configured during install, as I believe is the current configuration - I would look at how we can modify the logic for deciding how and whether to start initial-setup; it ought to be possible to work this in there in some way which could apply to all KDE-ish installs, I think?

[M4rtinK]

If the goal is to have initial-setup always run in the reconfiguration mode on first boot of a freshly-installed KDE/Kinoite system - as opposed to only running if no root password or admin user was configured during install, as I believe is the current configuration - I would look at how we can modify the logic for deciding how and whether to start initial-setup; it ought to be possible to work this in there in some way which could apply to all KDE-ish installs, I think?

That's a good point! Yeah, it might make sense to have this logic handled at the same time when we decide if we start the Initial Setup Systemd service. Might as well also turn on the reconfiguration mode if requested.

Implementation wise I think this could be an option in the Anaconda profile file, that KDE/Kinoite or any other Fedora spin/flavor could set as part of their profile. And there is going to be a KDE/Kinoite profile if I understand things correctly.

Maybe an option called reconfigure_system in the [Installation Target] section ? @poncovka what do you think ?

[travier]

OK, will try to look at this on the Anaconda side as our previous tries are unsuccessful: https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/pull-request/845

[M4rtinK]

OK, will try to look at this on the Anaconda side as our previous tries are unsuccessful: https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/pull-request/845

Do you have some more information about that not working ?