ubuntu preseed install fails to set a hostname

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Confirming/Triaged: I can reproduce this here easily; preseeded hostname should indeed get used. As I recall this isn't a new issue.

Setting priority to medium since there is an "easy" workaround for it.

Looks to me like you're "just" missing adding 'priority=critical' on the command-line to avoid being asked for the hostname. This happens before while the hostname is preseeded, the network needs to be brought up before it can be read, and netcfg does both bringing up the network and setting the hostname. Setting the debconf priority to 'critical' avoids the initial questions about the keymap and hostname/network settings. In other words, this means for a fully-automated, unattended preseeded install, you wouldn't need to specify hostname or keymap/locale, as SANDHYA VENUGOPALA suggested.

There still appears to be a bug though, in the way that netcfg doesn't honor the preseeded settings and set the hostname in /target (or in the installer environment, for that matter).

I will leave to your choice whether you want to close this bug report now, or keep it open for the netcfg bug I described, which still matches the title and description.

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2015-09-09 09:54 EDT-------
Making the comment external -

Edward R. Cheslek 2015-09-08 21:16:54 EDT

Mathieu, I guess you're the developer who will be fixing this netcfg issue? If that's that's the case, then it's at your discretion whether you'd prefer to close this as "will not fix", or drive the netcfg issue to resolution here. For me, I'd prefer to keep everything contained to this one bug, for clarity/completeness. If you do open a new bug, please cc myself and <email address hidden>.

Yes, I'd be the one fixing this issue -- I'm just responding to the fact that this was initially opened as "how can I make d-i not ask for the hostname, to get a fully unattended install". In this sense, the bug is "fixed", by bringing up debconf priority, the install will be unattended.

Now, I'd like to have an idea on how important teaching netcfg to apply hostname again later (either from what is received from DHCP or from preseeded settings), so we know whether this changes any priorities.

Reassigning to netcfg which is the correct package where to fix this.

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-01-28 06:04 EDT-------
Canonical,

Any updates?

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-03-15 05:48 EDT-------
Canonical,

Any updates?

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-06-27 02:58 EDT-------
What would be the target release for this bug?

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-07-08 02:29 EDT-------
.

Hi Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre,

Kindly let us know the updates and target release.

This bug is still on my list, but there hasn't been progress for the moment. The workaround I can think of to set hostname during the install would be to preseed the value on the command-line (setting netcfg/hostname=whatever along with priority=critical, etc.).

Fix for Yakkety

Fix for Trusty

The attachment "Fix for Yakkety" seems to be a debdiff. The ubuntu-sponsors team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review and hopefully sponsor the debdiff. If the attachment isn't a patch, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are member of the ~ubuntu-sponsors, unsubscribe the team.

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------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-09-29 10:13 EDT-------
This bug is actually targeted 15.10, which is past end of life.
To submitter, is this reproducible on 16.04 or 16.10?
If so, please retarget or close.
Thanks!

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I have deleted the proposed .debdiff as I want to re-work them a little bit.

Will re-submit once my re-work is completed.

Eric

Additional note about the re-work.

The original patch I have submitted works as expected by overriding the hostname but ...

I noticed after more testing that if LVM is used partman rely on "/etc/hostname" to name the VG[1] for instance : <hostname>--vg-root.

Unfortunately, the current patch does the hostname overriden after that the Volume Group is created which make the vg name and hostname inconsistent.

The re-work of the patch will consist on making sure the hostname override happens before the vgcreate to keep things consistent and not having a vg group that display the hostname before it has been overriden.

[1] - lib/auto-lvm.sh
278 auto_lvm_perform() {
279 # Use hostname as default vg name (if available)
280 local defvgname pv vg_file vg_name
281 # $pv_devices will be overridden with content from $VG_MAP_DIR
282 local pv_devices
283
284 db_get partman-auto-lvm/new_vg_name
285 if [ -z "$RET" ]; then
286 if [ -s /etc/hostname ]; then
287 defvgname=$(cat /etc/hostname | head -n 1 | tr -d " ")
288 fi
289 if [ "$defvgname" ]; then
290 db_set partman-auto-lvm/new_vg_name $defvgname-vg
291 else
292 db_set partman-auto-lvm/new_vg_name Ubuntu
293 fi
294 fi

Moving the script in preseed src code under "network-preseed.postinst" address the vg name creation situation (see previous comment).

It basically make "netcfg/hostname",if set, to load (override the hostname) before the "Volume Group" creation start which build the vg name based on the hostname (/etc/hostname)

Thanks cyphermox for your help.

Eric

Debdiff for Yakkety

Debdiff for Trusty

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Debdiff for Xenial

Since we changed stuff in preseed, fixing up the package links...

This bug was fixed in the package preseed - 1.71ubuntu3

---------------
preseed (1.71ubuntu3) yakkety; urgency=medium

  * Fix for netcfg/hostname, if set, to take precedence. (LP: #1452202)
    - Modify debian/network-preseed.postinst

 -- Eric Desrochers <email address hidden> Wed, 05 Oct 2016 11:50:09 -0400

Hello bugproxy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted preseed into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/preseed/1.71ubuntu1.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

I have tested "preseed - 1.71ubuntu1.1" by rebuilding the source code on a PPA along with d-i "20101020ubuntu451.6" in order to get a mini.iso.

I confirmed the mini.iso override the hostname as expected if "netcfg/hostname" is set and that the override occurred before the disk configuration for the vg name to match with the overridden hostname, if LVM is use.

Eric

Next step, is to increase the version of d-i for Y/X/T for the change in preseed to be rebuild and be part of the new ISOs (Daily)

Eric

d-i debdiff for Yakkety

d-i debdiff for Xenial

d-i debdiff for Trusty

Ok, looks like yakkety already has picked up the latest preseed in the current debian-installer package in the images; marking this one Fix Released.

Hello bugproxy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted preseed into trusty-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/preseed/1.62ubuntu1.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

I have tested on Trusty with "preseed - 1.62ubuntu1.1" by rebuilding the source code on a PPA along with d-i " 20101020ubuntu318.40" in order to get a mini.iso.

I confirmed the mini.iso override the hostname as expected if "netcfg/hostname" is set and that the override occurred before the disk configuration for the vg name to match with the overridden hostname, if LVM is use.

Eric

Hello bugproxy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted debian-installer into trusty-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/20101020ubuntu318.41 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

The d-i debdiff contains no changes, it is only to allow the rebuild (Daily ISO) to happen and to pick up the latest change in preseed package.

Eric

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This bug was fixed in the package preseed - 1.62ubuntu1.1

---------------
preseed (1.62ubuntu1.1) trusty; urgency=medium

  * Fix for netcfg/hostname, if set, to take precedence. (LP: #1452202)
    - Modify debian/network-preseed.postinst

 -- Eric Desrochers <email address hidden> Wed, 05 Oct 2016 11:58:53 -0400

The verification of the Stable Release Update for preseed has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

This bug was fixed in the package preseed - 1.71ubuntu1.1

---------------
preseed (1.71ubuntu1.1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Fix for netcfg/hostname, if set, to take precedence. (LP: #1452202)
    - Modify debian/network-preseed.postinst

 -- Eric Desrochers <email address hidden> Wed, 05 Oct 2016 12:01:39 -0400

This bug was fixed in the package debian-installer - 20101020ubuntu318.41

---------------
debian-installer (20101020ubuntu318.41) trusty; urgency=medium

  * No change rebuild to pick up the latest change in preseed (LP: #1452202)

 -- Eric Desrochers <email address hidden> Mon, 17 Oct 2016 17:29:25 -0400

Hello bugproxy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted debian-installer into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/20101020ubuntu451.7 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

287 defvgname=

Hello bugproxy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted debian-installer into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/20101020ubuntu451.8 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Hello bugproxy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted debian-installer into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/20101020ubuntu451.9 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2016-12-07 05:06 EDT-------
Hi Edward ,

Kindly update the bug once tested.

Still waiting on someone to test the xenial debian-installer upload and tell us that the bug is indeed fixed there.

The patch has been tested a while ago, but the tag never been changed.

I change the tag to verification-done.

Thanks Adam for pointing this out.

Eric

------- Comment From <email address hidden> 2017-01-12 11:42 EDT-------
This is fixed, thanks everyone.

This bug was fixed in the package debian-installer - 20101020ubuntu451.9

---------------
debian-installer (20101020ubuntu451.9) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Bump FLOPPY_SIZE by 2MB on amd64 and i386 for linux-firmware growth.

debian-installer (20101020ubuntu451.8) xenial; urgency=medium

  * No change rebuild to pick up the latest change in preseed (LP: #1452202)

 -- Adam Conrad <email address hidden> Wed, 07 Dec 2016 01:10:51 -0700

There are two problems with the patch:
1. netcfg/hostname=ubuntu (or any value containing "ubuntu") remains unfixed.
2. Certain DHCP hostnames can result in corrupting the hosts file.

For example, with DHCP name "node" and "netcfg/hostname=newname" we have this command:
/bin/sed -i "s/$CURRENT_HOSTNAME/$NETCFG_HOSTNAME/" /etc/hosts
which would change "ff02::1 ip6-allnodes" into "ff02::1 ip6-allnewnames".

(I actually ran into the first issue, trying to set hostname "ubuntu" which failed and resulted in a hostname that consists of an IP address...)

See also the comments in https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/106614/preseed-cfg-ignoring-hostname-setting, and in particular the reference to
http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/apbs04.html#preseed-network
The hostname is probably a very common case though.

I am currently using this in my preseed file (tested with Ubuntu 16.04.2 mini.iso):

d-i preseed/early_command string hostname=ubuntu; \
    sed "s/^127.0.1.1\t.*/127.0.1.1\t$hostname/" -i /etc/hosts; \
    echo "$hostname" > /etc/hostname; hostname "$hostname"

Proposal: revert the current patch and suggest the above preseed config *or* modify preseed:
1. Change sed commands to something like the above.
2. Remove "f ! echo "$RET" | grep -q 'ubuntu';" such that the hostname is unconditionally set when netcfg/hostname is given.

Note that "127.0.1.1\t%s" originates from netcfg-1.135ubuntu4.2, function netcfg_write_common in netcfg-common.c. This exact match does not rely on the current hostname which should possible regex injection issues.

I think Peter Wu is totally right.

In addition to above two problems, there is still another problem with the patch that the present regular expression '/bin/sed -i "s/$CURRENT_HOSTNAME/$NETCFG_HOSTNAME/" /etc/hosts' can't handle multiple hostname case:

$ echo '127.0.1.1 ubuntu.me.com ubuntu' |sed "s/ubuntu/newnode/"
127.0.1.1 newnode.me.com ubuntu

$ echo '127.0.1.1 ubuntu.me.com ubuntu' |sed "s/ubuntu/newnode/g"
127.0.1.1 newnode.me.com newnode

Maybe we can use the following regex instead, 'awk '$1 ~ /^127|localhost/ {print $0}'' is used to fix 'ff02::1 ip6-allnodes' case, and add 'g' option to modifity all hostname.

$ hostname=ubuntu
$ echo '127.0.1.1 ubuntu.me.com ubuntu' |awk '$1 ~ /^127|localhost/ {print $0}' |sed "s/\s*\(${hostname}\)\(\s*\)/\tnewnode/g"
127.0.1.1 newnode.me.com newnode

Addition, also need to remove "f ! echo "$RET" | grep -q 'ubuntu';" as Peter Wu said above

I mean:

/usr/bin/awk '$1 ~ /^127|localhost/ {print $0}' /etc/hosts | /bin/sed "s/\s*\(${CURRENT_HOSTNAME}\)\(\s*\)/\t${NETCFG_HOSTNAME}/g"

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The following regex is more better

/bin/sed -i "/^[127|localhost]/s/${CURRENT_HOSTNAME}/${NETCFG_HOSTNAME}/g" /etc/hosts

Hi Hua Zhang,

Just as an FYI...

A rebuild of "d-i" will be also required after your "preseed" SRU change in order to generate a new Minimal image of Ubuntu (mini.iso).

Note that there is a "d-i" FTBTFS situation that will need to be fix for "d-i" before the "d-i" rebuilt for the package to successfully build. I have already reported the bug about it:
LP: #1743787

- Eric

Remove the debdiff for "d-i" for Trusty only and Eric will take care of it in lp bug #1743787

Hi Joshua,

As discussed on irc, It would be best for Trusty to use the debdiff I made found in LP: #1743787.

Otherwise, when the "d-i" rebuild will be needed to generate a new mini.iso for instance, "d-i" will fail to build.

Everything is documented in the bug.

- Eric

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I don't think I'd want to have the patches provided applied as-is. There are multiple problems with them:

- The default hostname is 'ubuntu', and is the value you will get if nothing is preseeded -- we *do* need to skip it in this case, although the grep may need to be more precise. A name like 'ubuntuxenial' should match this grep.

- The sed needs to be fixed to more appropriately catch for the exact string, rather than any substring -- ie. it should not match 'ipv6-allnodes' if the name received from DHCP was 'node'. It should only match and replace for 'node'.

- You do not want to replace for all of 127 in /etc/hosts: you should not replace 127.0.0.1, but instead only "add" (replace, if necessary) 127.0.1.1; so maybe simply replace that entire line (to account for the case where multiple hostnames are set).

IIUC,one of the goal mentioned by cyphermox here seems to avoid the grep cmd to catch ubuntu pattern where hostname has ubuntu in it.

Example:
sometextbeforeubuntusometextafter
ubuntusometextafter
sometextbeforeubuntu

and only catch it when it is 'ubuntu' nothing else.

I think "-w" should suffice to keep the if statement remove in Joshua' proposal.

# man grep
-w, --word-regexp
              Select only those lines containing matches that form whole words.

if ! echo "$RET" | grep -qw 'ubuntu'; then
or
if ! echo "$RET" | grep -q '\<ubuntu\>'; then

Some quick tests I quickly ran on my laptop :
# echo "beforeubuntuafter" | grep -w "ubuntu"
# echo "beforeubuntuafter" | grep -w "ubuntu"
# echo "ubuntuafter" | grep -w "ubuntu"
# echo "ubuntu" | grep -w "ubuntu"
ubuntu

That should cover at least that one item.

Thoughts ?

- Eric

Hi Eric,

I think your proposal '-w' is good, so I will change to use:

if ! echo "$RET" | grep -qw 'ubuntu'; then

Mathieu,

How about using '/b' ? I mean using the following regex

/bin/sed -i "s/\b${CURRENT_HOSTNAME}\b/${NETCFG_HOSTNAME}/g" /etc/hosts

I have done some test below:

hua@t440p:~$ echo "node" | sed "s/\bnode\b/newnode/g"
newnode
hua@t440p:~$ echo "node." | sed "s/\bnode\b/newnode/g"
newnode.
hua@t440p:~$ echo "node.me.com" | sed "s/\bnode\b/newnode/g"
newnode.me.com
hua@t440p:~$ echo "ipv6-allnodes" | sed "s/\bnode\b/newnode/g"
ipv6-allnodes
hua@t440p:~$ echo "ipv6-allnodes node node.me.com node2 node2.me.com" | sed "s/\bnode\b/newnode/g"
ipv6-allnodes newnode newnode.me.com node2 node2.me.com

any thoughts ?

- joshua

Joshua,

That look good to me.

So I would suggest:

1) Keep the if statement and add the -w option to grep to be more robust
2) Modify the sed cmd with word boundaries (\b) to be more robust as well.

Can you build preseed & "d-i" in your PPA to generate a mini.iso and test the reproducer ?
If it fix the above situation, please redo the debdiff and we *cyphermox and I" will review it again.

Thanks

- Eric

Joshua,

Could you also report another bug against preseed for this particular case with this one as a reference ? With its own SRU justification tmpl, ....

It'll make sponsor and SRU team life easier to review.

- Eric

According to Eric's above comment, I've opened a new bug to track this at - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/preseed/+bug/1745531