_preseed_V1

Contents of the preconfiguration file (for bullseye)

Localization

Preseeding only locale sets language, country and locale.

d-i debian-installer/locale string de_DE

Keyboard selection.

d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select de

d-i keyboard-configuration/toggle select No toggling

Network configuration

Disable network configuration entirely. This is useful for cdrom

installations on non-networked devices where the network questions,

warning and long timeouts are a nuisance.

d-i netcfg/enable boolean false

netcfg will choose an interface that has link if possible. This makes it

skip displaying a list if there is more than one interface.

d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto

To pick a particular interface instead:

d-i netcfg/choose_interface select eth1

To set a different link detection timeout (default is 3 seconds).

Values are interpreted as seconds.

d-i netcfg/link_wait_timeout string 10

If you have a slow dhcp server and the installer times out waiting for

it, this might be useful.

d-i netcfg/dhcp_timeout string 60

d-i netcfg/dhcpv6_timeout string 60

Automatic network configuration is the default.

If you prefer to configure the network manually, uncomment this line and

the static network configuration below.

d-i netcfg/disable_autoconfig boolean true

If you want the preconfiguration file to work on systems both with and

without a dhcp server, uncomment these lines and the static network

configuration below.

d-i netcfg/dhcp_failed note

d-i netcfg/dhcp_options select Configure network manually

Static network configuration.

IPv4 example

d-i netcfg/get_ipaddress string 192.168.1.42

d-i netcfg/get_netmask string 255.255.255.0

d-i netcfg/get_gateway string 192.168.1.1

d-i netcfg/get_nameservers string 192.168.1.1

d-i netcfg/confirm_static boolean true

IPv6 example

d-i netcfg/get_ipaddress string fc00::2

d-i netcfg/get_netmask string ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff::

d-i netcfg/get_gateway string fc00::1

d-i netcfg/get_nameservers string fc00::1

d-i netcfg/confirm_static boolean true

Any hostname and domain names assigned from dhcp take precedence over

values set here. However, setting the values still prevents the questions

from being shown, even if values come from dhcp.

d-i netcfg/get_hostname string debian

d-i netcfg/get_domain string fritz.box

If you want to force a hostname, regardless of what either the DHCP

server returns or what the reverse DNS entry for the IP is, uncomment

and adjust the following line.

d-i netcfg/hostname string debian

Disable that annoying WEP key dialog.

d-i netcfg/wireless_wep string

The wacky dhcp hostname that some ISPs use as a password of sorts.

d-i netcfg/dhcp_hostname string radish

If non-free firmware is needed for the network or other hardware, you can

configure the installer to always try to load it, without prompting. Or

change to false to disable asking.

d-i hw-detect/load_firmware boolean false

Network console

Use the following settings if you wish to make use of the network-console

component for remote installation over SSH. This only makes sense if you

intend to perform the remainder of the installation manually.

d-i anna/choose_modules string network-console

d-i network-console/authorized_keys_url string http://10.0.0.1/openssh-key

d-i network-console/password password r00tme

d-i network-console/password-again password r00tme

Mirror settings

Mirror protocol:

If you select ftp, the mirror/country string does not need to be set.

Default value for the mirror protocol: http.

d-i mirror/protocol string ftp

d-i mirror/country string de

d-i mirror/http/hostname string ftp.de.debian.org

d-i mirror/http/directory string /debian

d-i mirror/http/proxy string

Suite to install.

d-i mirror/suite string testing

Suite to use for loading installer components (optional).

d-i mirror/udeb/suite string testing

Account setup

Skip creation of a root account (normal user account will be able to

use sudo).

d-i passwd/root-login boolean false

Alternatively, to skip creation of a normal user account.

d-i passwd/make-user boolean false

Root password, either in clear text

d-i passwd/root-password password r00tme

d-i passwd/root-password-again password r00tme

or encrypted using a crypt(3) hash.

d-i passwd/root-password-crypted password [crypt(3) hash]

To create a normal user account.

d-i passwd/user-fullname string Janina

d-i passwd/username string janina

Normal user's password, either in clear text

d-i passwd/user-password password insecure

d-i passwd/user-password-again password insecure

or encrypted using a crypt(3) hash.

d-i passwd/user-password-crypted password [crypt(3) hash]

Create the first user with the specified UID instead of the default.

d-i passwd/user-uid string 1010

The user account will be added to some standard initial groups. To

override that, use this.

d-i passwd/user-default-groups string sudo audio cdrom video dip plugdev lpadmin scanner

Clock and time zone setup

Controls whether or not the hardware clock is set to UTC.

d-i clock-setup/utc boolean true

You may set this to any valid setting for $TZ; see the contents of

/usr/share/zoneinfo/ for valid values.

d-i time/zone string Europe/Berlin

Controls whether to use NTP to set the clock during the install

d-i clock-setup/ntp boolean true

NTP server to use. The default is almost always fine here.

d-i clock-setup/ntp-server string ntp.example.com

Partitioning

Partitioning example

If the system has free space you can choose to only partition that space.

This is only honoured if partman-auto/method (below) is not set.

d-i partman-auto/init_automatically_partition select biggest_free

Alternatively, you may specify a disk to partition. If the system has only

one disk the installer will default to using that, but otherwise the device

name must be given in traditional, non-devfs format (so e.g. /dev/sda

and not e.g. /dev/discs/disc0/disc).

For example, to use the first SCSI/SATA hard disk:

d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/nvme0n1

In addition, you'll need to specify the method to use.

The presently available methods are:

• regular: use the usual partition types for your architecture

• lvm: use LVM to partition the disk

• crypto: use LVM within an encrypted partition

d-i partman-auto/method string crypto

You can define the amount of space that will be used for the LVM volume

group. It can either be a size with its unit (eg. 20 GB), a percentage of

free space or the 'max' keyword.

d-i partman-auto-lvm/guided_size string max

If one of the disks that are going to be automatically partitioned

contains an old LVM configuration, the user will normally receive a

warning. This can be preseeded away...

d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true

The same applies to pre-existing software RAID array:

d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true

And the same goes for the confirmation to write the lvm partitions.

d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true

d-i partman-lvm/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true

You can choose one of the three predefined partitioning recipes:

• atomic: all files in one partition

• home: separate /home partition

• multi: separate /home, /var, and /tmp partitions

d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select home

Controlling how partitions are mounted

The default is to mount by UUID, but you can also choose "traditional" to

use traditional device names, or "label" to try filesystem labels before

falling back to UUIDs.

d-i partman/mount_style select uuid

Base system installation

Configure APT to not install recommended packages by default. Use of this

option can result in an incomplete system and should only be used by very

experienced users.

d-i base-installer/install-recommends boolean false

The kernel image (meta) package to be installed; "none" can be used if no

kernel is to be installed.

d-i base-installer/kernel/image string linux-image-686

Apt setup

Choose, if you want to scan additional installation media

(default: false).

d-i apt-setup/cdrom/set-first boolean false

You can choose to install non-free and contrib software.

d-i apt-setup/non-free boolean true

d-i apt-setup/contrib boolean true

Uncomment the following line, if you don't want to have the sources.list

entry for a DVD/BD installation image active in the installed system

(entries for netinst or CD images will be disabled anyway, regardless of

this setting).

d-i apt-setup/disable-cdrom-entries boolean true

Uncomment this if you don't want to use a network mirror.

d-i apt-setup/use_mirror boolean false

Select which update services to use; define the mirrors to be used.

Values shown below are the normal defaults.

d-i apt-setup/services-select multiselect security, updates

d-i apt-setup/security_host string security.debian.org

Additional repositories, local[0-9] available

d-i apt-setup/local0/repository string \

http://local.server/debian stable 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://local.server/key

If the provided key file ends in ".asc" the key file needs to be an

ASCII-armoured PGP key, if it ends in ".gpg" it needs to use the

"GPG key public keyring" format, the "keybox database" format is

currently not supported.

By default the installer requires that repositories be authenticated

using a known gpg key. This setting can be used to disable that

authentication. Warning: Insecure, not recommended.

d-i debian-installer/allow_unauthenticated boolean true

Uncomment this to add multiarch configuration for i386

d-i apt-setup/multiarch string i386

Package selection

tasksel tasksel/first multiselect standard, lxde-desktop, desktop

Or choose to not get the tasksel dialog displayed at all (and don't install

any packages):

d-i pkgsel/run_tasksel boolean false

Individual additional packages to install

d-i pkgsel/include string vim tmux tmuxinator pass rofi sxhkd dex redshift i3 chromium librewolf deja-dup flameshot thunderbird

Whether to upgrade packages after debootstrap.

Allowed values: none, safe-upgrade, full-upgrade

d-i pkgsel/upgrade select safe-upgrade

You can choose, if your system will report back on what software you have

installed, and what software you use. The default is not to report back,

but sending reports helps the project determine what software is most

popular and should be included on the first CD/DVD.

popularity-contest popularity-contest/participate boolean false

Boot loader installation

Grub is the boot loader (for x86).

This is fairly safe to set, it makes grub install automatically to the UEFI

partition/boot record if no other operating system is detected on the machine.

d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean true

This one makes grub-installer install to the UEFI partition/boot record, if

it also finds some other OS, which is less safe as it might not be able to

boot that other OS.

d-i grub-installer/with_other_os boolean true

Due notably to potential USB sticks, the location of the primary drive can

not be determined safely in general, so this needs to be specified:

d-i grub-installer/bootdev string /dev/nvme0n1

To install to the primary device (assuming it is not a USB stick):

d-i grub-installer/bootdev string default

Alternatively, if you want to install to a location other than the UEFI

parition/boot record, uncomment and edit these lines:

d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean false

d-i grub-installer/with_other_os boolean false

d-i grub-installer/bootdev string (hd0,1)

To install grub to multiple disks:

d-i grub-installer/bootdev string (hd0,1) (hd1,1) (hd2,1)

Optional password for grub, either in clear text

d-i grub-installer/password password r00tme

d-i grub-installer/password-again password r00tme

or encrypted using an MD5 hash, see grub-md5-crypt(8).

d-i grub-installer/password-crypted password [MD5 hash]

Use the following option to add additional boot parameters for the

installed system (if supported by the bootloader installer).

Note: options passed to the installer will be added automatically.

d-i debian-installer/add-kernel-opts string nousb

Finishing up the installation

During installations from serial console, the regular virtual consoles

(VT1-VT6) are normally disabled in /etc/inittab. Uncomment the next

line to prevent this.

d-i finish-install/keep-consoles boolean true

Avoid that last message about the install being complete.

d-i finish-install/reboot_in_progress note

This will prevent the installer from ejecting the CD during the reboot,

which is useful in some situations.

d-i cdrom-detect/eject boolean false

This is how to make the installer shutdown when finished, but not

reboot into the installed system.

d-i debian-installer/exit/halt boolean true

This will power off the machine instead of just halting it.

d-i debian-installer/exit/poweroff boolean true

Preseeding other packages

Depending on what software you choose to install, or if things go wrong

during the installation process, it's possible that other questions may

be asked. You can preseed those too, of course. To get a list of every

possible question that could be asked during an install, do an

installation, and then run these commands:

debconf-get-selections --installer > file

debconf-get-selections >> file

Advanced options

Running custom commands during the installation

d-i preseeding is inherently not secure. Nothing in the installer checks

for attempts at buffer overflows or other exploits of the values of a

preconfiguration file like this one. Only use preconfiguration files from

trusted locations! To drive that home, and because it's generally useful,

here's a way to run any shell command you'd like inside the installer,

automatically.

This first command is run as early as possible, just after

preseeding is read.

d-i preseed/early_command string anna-install some-udeb

This command is run immediately before the partitioner starts. It may be

useful to apply dynamic partitioner preseeding that depends on the state

of the disks (which may not be visible when preseed/early_command runs).

d-i partman/early_command \

string debconf-set partman-auto/disk "$(list-devices disk | head -n1)"

This command is run just before the install finishes, but when there is

still a usable /target directory. You can chroot to /target and use it

directly, or use the apt-install and in-target commands to easily install

packages and run commands in the target system.

d-i preseed/late_command string apt-install zsh; in-target chsh -s /bin/zsh