new criterion proposal: core kickstart commands

[John.Florian at dart.biz]

> From: Kamil Paral <kparal at redhat.com>
> 
> In the discussion about 
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=869978
> we agreed that we should have a list of core kickstart commands that
> should definitely work for a Final release.
> 
> All the options are documented here:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Kickstart
> 
> I tried to make a core selection. I had the following in mind:
> 1. Kickstarts are used for automation, therefore the most important 
> commands related to automation must work (manual intervention is not 
fine).
> 2. Commands which are easily work-aroundable shouldn't be part of 
> the core selection.
>   Example: 'authconfig' kickstart command is just a wrapper around 
> authconfig tool. You can issue the same command in %post and it 
> should do the same. If %post works, it's trivial to work around 
> nonfunctional authconfig kickstart command. The same applies for 
> 'firewall', 'group', 'user' and others, it's trivial to run it in %post.
> 3. Some commands have plenty of options. We can't really define into
> the smallest detail which one of them must work and which doesn't 
> have to. In this case a blocker-bug discussion is necessary to 
> weight the importance of the option, its usage volume and the risk 
involved.
> 
> 
> I arrived at three different categories of the core set:
> 
> == Setting up installation environment ==
> network
> updates
> keyboard
> lang
> rootpw
> 
> * 'network' and 'updates' are core commands, in same cases you 
> really need them to start the installation.
> * 'keyboard' and 'lang' might probably be worked around in %pre, but
> it might be non-trivial for people. But I'm not firmly decided here.
> * 'rootpw' can be worked around in %post, but I consider it pretty 
> basic command to work without problems
> 
> == Partitioning the system ==
> zerombr
> autopart
> clearpart
> part
> bootloader
> volgroup
> logvol
> 
> * Partitioning is pretty major function of the installer and if 
> doesn't work, it's just useless. I consider it core.
> * LVM support might be questioned. I decided to put it here, because
> LVM is the Fedora default and it might be pretty useful in some 
> automated installation. We can discuss it though.
> * I haven't included some other partitioning commands, like 'btrfs',
> 'raid', or 'multipath'. They are useful and pretty, but I don't see 
> them as really core.
> 
> == Installation process ==
> install
> upgrade
> repo
> %packages
> %pre
> %post
> poweroff
> reboot
> 
> * 'install' and 'upgrade', because you need to be able to tell 
> installer which mode to use
> * 'repo' because you need to set your mirror, or activate/deactive 
> updates-testing, or something like that
> * '%packages' because package selection is one the core functions 
ofkickstart
> * '%pre' and '%post' because it is often needed for some post-
> install setups (setting up sshd, creating accounts etc) and also can
> be used to work around broken commands
> * 'poweroff' and 'reboot' because in an automated environment these 
> might be very important for you. Rebooting a computer that is 1000 
> miles away from you might not be an easy task.
> 
> 
> It might be a bit difficult to put this into criteria, I think there
> is no other way except than list the core commands. We can't say 
> "everything related to partitioning", because then people would 
> argue "btrfs" command is included. Maybe we can create a separate 
> page/subpage related to kickstart core commands and just link to it 
> from the criteria document.
> 
> Comments very welcome.

I make heavy use of the %include directive which I don't see that you've 
mentioned anywhere.  It's a rather fundamental feature for how I use 
kickstarts through livecd-tools to effect dynamic sections.  I suppose I 
could revise my tools to create a dynamic, yet monolith kickstart script, 
but at present I have everything tooled to around a core kickstart script, 
numerous static helpers that get %included and several dynamic helpers 
that are also %included.  Thus I'd appreciate seeing %include added to the 
criteria, if it's not too much of a pain.

FWIW it's presently working fine for me with my test box that was F17 
originally and yum-upgraded to F18 shortly after the branch was made. This 
box is running my tool that runs livecd-tools to make custom live spins 
that I've been heavily testing and developing since the branch.
--
John Florian
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