New Installer: Data Workflow

Data Workflow

Depending on the config the apply step must have information evolving during the deploy step. These information are UUIDs of file-systems and RAIDs.

The information can either be saved in the config file, some additional status file or be detected from the system.

Since UUID should likely not be present in the config file that can be used to install systems later the UUID should not be included in the config file.

Uploading the Config File

SLES11 installation displays Clone this system check box at the end of installation.

As written in the Data Workflow section the final config file should not contain any specific data that could not be reused for a new installation. It should be usable on another system as the installation config file providing the cloning functionality.

To keep the cloning functionality we need to copy the final config file created by the installation wizard.

Note: The installation config file provides only subset of AutoYaST functionality, AutoYaST covers also modules not present in the installation workflow (like Samba, LDAP, printer configuration, user management...)

How to Copy the Config File

• Copy the config file to a fixed location in the target system. This is similar to SLE11 solution where the configuration is saved to /root/autoinst.xml file.
• Simply tell the user the local file path and let the user copy/upload the file manually. (This could be combined with the previous option.)
• Implement UI for uploading the config to a custom server (which protocol? SCP, FTP, HTTP...?) or copy to a removable device (floppy, USB flash, external/internal disk).
• Upload the config file to SCC. This obviously needs support on the SCC side.

Handling Private Sensitive Data

The config file will contain private sensitive data (like root password, proxy password, registration codes...).

For cloning the system it makes sense to keep the values in the copy so the new cloned installation is exactly the same, but if we upload it to some our server (like SCC) we have to remove this data for security reasons.