Howdy :)
We're automating installs of Lucid, Maverick, and testing Precise. On
all of these distributions, we face a prompt at the end which says
something like:
Continue without installing Grub?
If we answer yes, everything is fine. Unfortunately, this can be a
real pain on machines with limited remote access, e.g. serial console.
It's pretty well a failed automated strategy if we have to call the
datacenter and have someone walk over to press enter. :)
In any case, I was hoping someone on the list would have thoughts on
why this might occur.
Pasted below is an example preseed (these are generated by a Django app):
-- snip --
d-i debian-installer/locale string en_US
d-i console-setup/ask_detect boolean false
d-i console-setup/layoutcode string us
### Network configuration
# Our Ubuntu configs use a simple static IP for installation. We correct the
# interface configuration using a post-install script.
### Network configuration
#d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto
d-i netcfg/choose_interface select eth1
#d-i netcfg/dhcp_timeout string 60
d-i netcfg/disable_dhcp boolean true
#d-i netcfg/dhcp_failed note
d-i netcfg/dhcp_options select Configure network manually
d-i netcfg/get_nameservers string 10.103.0.30
d-i netcfg/get_ipaddress string 10.103.1.244
d-i netcfg/get_netmask string 255.255.252.0
d-i netcfg/get_gateway string 10.103.0.1
d-i netcfg/confirm_static boolean true
d-i netcfg/get_hostname string s-08-07-b
d-i netcfg/get_domain string somelan.somecompany.com
d-i netcfg/wireless_wep string
d-i preseed/run string /static/install/preseed/static
### Mirror settings
d-i mirror/country string manual
d-i mirror/http/hostname string ubuntu-mirror.somecompany.com
d-i mirror/http/directory string /ubuntu
# Alternatively: by default, the installer uses CC.archive.ubuntu.com where
# CC is the ISO-3166-2 code for the selected country. You can preseed this
# so that it does so without asking.
#d-i mirror/http/mirror select CC.archive.ubuntu.com
d-i mirror/suite string lucid
d-i mirror/udeb/components multiselect main, restricted
# Additional repositories, local[0-9] available
d-i apt-setup/local0/repository string \
http://apt.somecompany.com/ubuntu lucid main
d-i apt-setup/local0/comment string local server
# Enable deb-src lines
#d-i apt-setup/local0/source boolean true
# URL to the public key of the local repository; you must provide a key or
# apt will complain about the unauthenticated repository and so the
# sources.list line will be left commented out
d-i apt-setup/local0/key string
http://apt.somecompany.com/ubuntu/gpg/repokey.gpg
### Clock Settings
d-i clock-setup/utc boolean true
d-i time/zone string Etc/UTC
d-i clock-setup/ntp boolean true
#d-i clock-setup/ntp-server string ntp.example.com
### Partitioning
# The presently available methods are: regular, lvm and crypto
#d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/sda
d-i partman/early_command string if [ -f /sys/module/cciss/version
]; then debconf-set partman-auto/disk /dev/cciss/c0d0 ; debconf-set
grub-installer/bootdev /dev/cciss/c0d0; else debconf-set
partman-auto/disk /dev/sda; debconf-set grub-installer/bootdev
/dev/sda ; fi
d-i partman-auto/method string regular
# default FS, mount with UUIDs
d-i partman/default_filesystem string ext4
d-i partman/mount_style select uuid
# here is the partitioning scheme
#d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select atomic
d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe string \
single :: \
500 1 10 ext4 \
$primary{ } \
$bootable{ } \
method{ format } \
format{ } \
use_filesystem{ } \
filesystem{ ext4 } \
mountpoint{ / } .
# yes, overwrite existing partitions
d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i partman-md/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i partman-lvm/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i partman-basicfilesystems/no_swap boolean false
# yes, remove existing LVs (LVM) and RAID partitions
d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true
d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true
# yes, really do the LVM or RAID setup I specified above
d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true
d-i partman-md/confirm boolean true
# yes, write new label, do the partitioning, and yes again
d-i partman/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
# still boot up if the array is degraded
mdadm-udeb mdadm/boot_degraded boolean true
# Install boot loader to first disk
#d-i grub-installer/bootdev string (hd0,0)
### Base system installation
d-i base-installer/kernel/image string linux-image-2.6.32-38-server
### Account setup
d-i passwd/root-login boolean false
# root password unset
#d-i passwd/root-password password r00tme
#d-i passwd/root-password-again password r00tme
d-i passwd/root-password-crypted password YeahYeahYeahRight
d-i passwd/user-fullname string Operations
d-i passwd/username