preseed netinstall vlan network

[TRAN, JOHN]

I'm attempting to do a preseeded netinstall using mini.iso. In general, is it possible to do a netinstall if your network is vlan tagged? I have found a thread in which describes how it hypothetically is possible with manual intervention. I would appreciate any further information on how this might be possible.

[Bob Proulx]

TRAN, JOHN wrote:
> I'm attempting to do a preseeded netinstall using mini.iso. In
> general, is it possible to do a netinstall if your network is vlan
> tagged?

A VLAN is a Virtual LAN. A Virtual LAN is a way to group hosts
together onto a common network even though their locations may be
physically separate. But as far as processes on the hosts know they
are simply on a LAN.

Therefore the answer to your question can only be YES. Because
installing in a virtual LAN will be identical to installing on a LAN.
And it is certainly possible to preseed netinstall on a LAN.

> I have found a thread in which describes how it hypothetically is
> possible with manual intervention. I would appreciate any further
> information on how this might be possible.

Huh? Please describe your environment in more detail. Because I
would be shocked to learn that there might be a problem. Which is
exactly the opposite of what your statement implies.

All you need to do a netinst is access to the network so that the
debian-installer can download the packages it needs to install on the
fly. The protocol is specified by the source mirror specified. That
may most often be http these days but ftp and local files and other
transports are also supported.

All you need to preseed an install is to make the preseed file
available. There are several methods as described in the official
documentation.

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/apbs01.html.en#preseed-methods

Is there something specific about your network environment that would
prevent either of the above requirements?

Bob

[TRAN, JOHN]

I apologize I wasn't clearer about the preseed but I am injecting that into the ISO file so I don't need to get that over tftp. I need the network connectivity for the rest of the install. I don't have control of the network, I just know that I need to vlan tag a network interface otherwise I won't be able to connect to the default gateway. In my case the vlan is logical therefore the nic *must* be vlan tagged (using vconfig) otherwise I won't be able to get on the correct network. Is there a way to do that using a netinstall iso?

________________________________________
From: Bob Proulx [b...@proulx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 3:08 PM
To: debia...@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: preseed netinstall vlan network

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[Stephan Seitz]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 04:08:38PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
>TRAN, JOHN wrote:
>> I'm attempting to do a preseeded netinstall using mini.iso. In
>> general, is it possible to do a netinstall if your network is vlan
>> tagged?
>A VLAN is a Virtual LAN. A Virtual LAN is a way to group hosts
>together onto a common network even though their locations may be
>physically separate. But as far as processes on the hosts know they
>are simply on a LAN.

Hm, maybe he’s trying to say, that the linux host will get the tagged
network packets because it is in several VLANs?

But I don’t think the installer has the option to configure network
interfaces with VLAN tagging.

Shade and sweet water!

Stephan

--
| Stephan Seitz E-Mail: st...@fsing.rootsland.net |
| Public Keys: http://fsing.rootsland.net/~stse/keys.html |

[TRAN, JOHN]

Yes, that's absolutely correct. Thank you for clarifying that. That's too bad if there isn't any way to vlan tag the nic during netinstall mini.iso. Instead I'll have to create a full blown custom.iso that would be much bigger and install locally, and then post_install to configure the vlan tagging.

________________________________________
From: Stephan Seitz [stse+...@fsing.rootsland.net]
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 3:24 PM

To: debia...@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: preseed netinstall vlan network

[Bob Proulx]

TRAN, JOHN wrote:
> I apologize I wasn't clearer about the preseed but I am injecting
> that into the ISO file so I don't need to get that over tftp.

Good! That definitely makes that part easier. And then there are
also no restrictions about what can be preseeded.

> I need the network connectivity for the rest of the install. I
> don't have control of the network, I just know that I need to vlan
> tag a network interface otherwise I won't be able to connect to the
> default gateway. In my case the vlan is logical therefore the nic
> *must* be vlan tagged (using vconfig) otherwise I won't be able to
> get on the correct network. Is there a way to do that using a
> netinstall iso?

The debian-installer does not have native support for configuring a
local VLAN interface in the installer. (The debian-installer only
recently acquired the ability to use encrypted wifi.) It basically
just DHCP's an address and then uses it.

But if you are using a preseed then you should be able to include the
preseed commands stuffed into either "late_command" or "early_command"
or possibly another place to reconfigure the interface for a
particular vlan. The *_command routines allow you to do whatever you
need to do there.

Now it is time for editorial comments. :-) This doesn't seem to be a
reasonable use of vlans to me. I think someone has pushed a feature
from the routing level down too low in the stack to the client user
side of things.

I don't know the overall target that you are trying to accomplish but
if I were doing this I would create a router machine with two network
interfaces. I would set up the first interface for the vlan. Then I
would install shorewall and set up NAT and dhcp on the other network
card for a local private subnet. I would then install there on the
private subnet. Then the new system being installed upon would not
need to know anything about any of the upstream vlan configuration.
After installation then I would install the vlan package and configure
the system for the target network and move it to its final destination.

Or if there were many identical machines then you could image the disk
and just copy the disk image around. That is much more fragile. But
with hand-holding it might bypass some of your vlan problems.

Bob