I’ve spent sometime in setting up an autoinst.xml file for use with Autoyast to automate the installation of openSUSE Tumbleweed on my systems.
I was curious whether a manually installed system was different in anyway from an Autoyast based automated installation one and am happy to confirm that there were very few differences under /etc and in terms of packages installed.
Files manual/etc/aliases.lmdb and automated/etc/aliases.lmdb differ
Only in automated/etc: autoinstall
Files manual/etc/chrony.conf and automated/etc/chrony.conf differ
Files manual/etc/cups/subscriptions.conf and automated/etc/cups/subscriptions.conf differ
Files manual/etc/default/grub and automated/etc/default/grub differ
Files manual/etc/default/useradd and automated/etc/default/useradd differ
Files manual/etc/fstab and automated/etc/fstab differ
Files manual/etc/group and automated/etc/group differ
Only in automated/etc: group.YaST2save
Files manual/etc/hostname and automated/etc/hostname differ
Files manual/etc/hosts and automated/etc/hosts differ
Files manual/etc/ld.so.cache and automated/etc/ld.so.cache differ
Only in automated/etc: lvm
Files manual/etc/machine-id and automated/etc/machine-id differ
Only in manual/etc/modprobe.d: 50-yast.conf
Files manual/etc/nvme/hostid and automated/etc/nvme/hostid differ
Files manual/etc/nvme/hostnqn and automated/etc/nvme/hostnqn differ
Files manual/etc/shadow and automated/etc/shadow differ
Files manual/etc/shadow- and automated/etc/shadow- differ
Files manual/etc/shadow.YaST2save and automated/etc/shadow.YaST2save differ
Files manual/etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key and automated/etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key differ
Files manual/etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.pub and automated/etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.pub differ
Files manual/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key and automated/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key differ
Files manual/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key.pub and automated/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key.pub differ
Files manual/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key and automated/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key differ
Files manual/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key.pub and automated/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key.pub differ
Files manual/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key and automated/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key differ
Files manual/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub and automated/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub differ
Only in automated/etc/sysconfig: autoinstall
Only in automated/etc/sysconfig: kdump
Files manual/etc/sysconfig/network/dhcp and automated/etc/sysconfig/network/dhcp differ
Files manual/etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-enp0s3 and automated/etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-enp0s3 differ
Files manual/etc/sysconfig/proxy and automated/etc/sysconfig/proxy differ
Files manual/etc/sysctl.d/70-yast.conf and automated/etc/sysctl.d/70-yast.conf differ
Only in manual/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants: chronyd.service
Only in automated/etc/systemd/system/sysinit.target.wants: lvm2-lvmpolld.socket
Only in automated/etc/systemd/system/sysinit.target.wants: lvm2-monitor.service
Files manual/etc/.updated and automated/etc/.updated differ
Files manual/etc/YaST2/ProductFeatures and automated/etc/YaST2/ProductFeatures differ
Only in automated/etc/zypp: locks
Only in manual/etc/zypp/repos.d: download.opensuse.org-oss.repo
Only in manual/etc/zypp/repos.d: download.opensuse.org-tumbleweed.repo
Only in automated/etc/zypp/repos.d: download.opensuse.org-updates.repo
Files manual/etc/zypp/repos.d/openSUSE-20210330-0.repo and automated/etc/zypp/repos.d/openSUSE-20210330-0.repo differ
Only in manual/etc/zypp/repos.d: repo-debug.repo
Only in manual/etc/zypp/repos.d: repo-source.repo
❯ diff manual/pkg_list.txt automated/pkg_list.txt
74a75
> autoyast2
1046a1048
> liblvm2cmd2_03
1461a1464
> lvm2
1683d1685
< poppler-data
2033a2036
> yast2-schema
I’ve gone through the list and can account for and understand why there is a difference found for each of the above lines.
One difference I encountered which I wasn’t sure the significance about is:
The file: /etc/YaST2/ProductFeatures
This file had the following difference:
Manual installation:
[network]
network_manager = "always"
[software]
default_patterns = "kde x11 base enhanced_base x11_yast yast2_basis"
Automated installation:
* Did not have the "network_manager" or "default_patterns" lines.
What is the significance of the ProductFeatures file? I found some documentation about it here: https://github.com/yast/yast-installation/blob/master/doc/control-file.md#product-features but I am unsure on whether this file is used solely by Autoyast or if yast2 relies on it as well. My concern is whether I will face any future issues with the usage of Yast2 because of this difference. Am happy to raise a bug report if the forum is not the best place to ask.
My autoinst.xml file - https://paste.opensuse.org/dfa20228
My manual /etc/YaST2/ProductFeatures file - https://paste.opensuse.org/34c5faf8
My automated [FONT=monospace]/etc/YaST2/ProductFeatures file - https://paste.opensuse.org/404dfe46
[/FONT]