Debian preseed BeagleBone Black

This is a utility to aid in preseeding the installation of Debian on the BeagleBone Black.

Usage

1. Download and flash Debian installation SD card image to a memory card.

   ./flash-debinst-bbb.sh <mmcblk_dev> [release=buster [version=current [variant=netboot]]]

2. Add preseed file to initrd.

   ./preseed-initrd.sh <preseed_file> <initrd_gz_file>

Troubleshooting

Kernel modules not found during installation

If, after "Downloading Release Files...", a warning is shown about missing kernel modules, try starting over with a fresh SD card image. First, delete the old ones by running make clean. Then, start over from the beginning.

Official firmware images

If everything else fails, the official firmware images from the manufacturer of the board may come in handy one way or another:

xzcat <bone_eMMC_flasher_img_xz> | pv | sudo tee <mmcblk_dev> > /dev/null

Resources

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armhf/apb.en.html

TODO

Template preseed.cfg

Allow inserting things like passwd/user-password-crypted during a templating run.

Reduce the number of manual steps

The UI should really only be:

$ ./flash-debinst-bbb [--preseed preseed.cfg] <mmcblk-dev>
Overwrite all data on device <mmcblk-dev>? [y|N]: y
$ echo $status
0

Validate preseed.cfg

debconf-set-selections -c preseed.cfg

Create file from after installation

1. Do the installation manually.
2. Reboot
3. Install debconf-utils package.
4. Get the debconf selections.

From https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armhf/apbs03.en.html:

An alternative method is to do a manual installation and then, after rebooting, use the debconf-get-selections from the debconf-utils package to dump both the debconf database and the installer's cdebconf database to a single file:

$ echo "#_preseed_V1" > file
$ debconf-get-selections --installer >> file
$ debconf-get-selections >> file

However, a file generated in this manner will have some items that should not be preseeded, and the example file is a better starting place for most users.
[Note] 	Note

This method relies on the fact that, at the end of the installation, the installer's cdebconf database is saved to the installed system in /var/log/installer/cdebconf. However, because the database may contain sensitive information, by default the files are only readable by root.

The directory /var/log/installer and all files in it will be deleted from your system if you purge the package installation-report.

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.

See COPYING to see the full text.