Debian-Installer: how to preseed a lenny (oldstable) installation

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I had a perfectly fine running installation process for virtual machines based on an instalinux CD, creating Debian 5 lenny VMs within minutes. The preseed file ensures installation of puppet, which takes care of "personalization" of the VMs later, so really I need only one installimage (which is why I'm not interested in FAI or similar heavyweights).

Since Debian 6 has come out, the preseed doesn't work anymore – it seems to be installing squeeze, but then the grub-installation fails, and I don't want squeeze anyway (yet).

This is the section of the preseed file that specifies the source:

####################################################################
# Installation Sources
####################################################################

# Where are we pulling bits from?
d-i     mirror/http/hostname    string ftp.de.debian.org
d-i     mirror/http/directory   string /debian/
d-i     mirror/suite            string lenny

# Post install APT setup
d-i     apt-setup/uri_type      select d-i
d-i     apt-setup/hostname      string ftp.de.debian.org
d-i     apt-setup/directory     string /debian/
d-i     apt-setup/another       boolean false
d-i     apt-setup/security-updates      boolean false
d-i     finish-install/reboot_in_progress note
d-i     prebaseconfig/reboot_in_progress        note

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

Any idea how to get it to really install lenny (oldstable)? Thanks!

Best Answer

I found this post on superuser.com, indicating that it can't be done. Aparently the network installer, always grabs the latest stable packages. Now I will try to find out how to preseed a full-iso-install, rather than a network-install.

(If you like this, I'd suggest you upvote the original answer, not my repeat of it).

Update: Got it working by

  • Placing the preseed file on an internally reachable webserver, URL: http://<webserver>/d-i/lenny/preseed.cfg
  • Booting a VM off the debian-506-amd64-netinst.iso
  • At the splash screen I hit ESC to get to the boot prompt
  • At the boot prompt I type in auto url=<webserver>
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