Can no longer perform automated factory installs due to changes in partman-base

[Mario Limonciello]

In the last upload of partman-base, 129ubuntu5, a preseed that allowed Dell factory installs to work was removed.
The preseed that was previously line previously used was:

d-i partman/filter_mounted boolean false

This would allow partman to ignore that a disk was mounted, and let you still install into the free space on the disk. This option was removed, so now automated installs on disks containing the recovery partition are not permitted.

(The reason why this is not generally supported is that it only works if the partitioning changes that are made are strictly after any mounted partition, and partman has no way to enforce that accurately as yet. However, it may be possible in special cases such as that used by Dell's recovery partition system.)

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

To clarify, when it pops up this warning, you can still manually make partitions and things will work.

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

The change that actually caused the breakage was in partman-auto. We're using a recipe for the rest of the disk, and now partman-auto is ignoring such situations in it's last upload:

=== modified file 'debian/changelog'
--- debian/changelog 2009-02-11 13:33:18 +0000
+++ debian/changelog 2009-04-02 10:48:51 +0000
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+partman-auto (84ubuntu2) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
+
+ * Exclude devices containing the installation medium from automatic
+ partitioning (LP: #347916). Requires partman-base 129ubuntu5 for this
+ change to work properly.
+
+ -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:47:37 +0100
+
 partman-auto (84ubuntu1) jaunty; urgency=low

   * Resynchronise with Debian. Remaining changes:

=== modified file 'lib/auto-shared.sh'
--- lib/auto-shared.sh 2008-11-15 00:05:57 +0000
+++ lib/auto-shared.sh 2009-04-02 10:48:51 +0000
@@ -204,6 +204,9 @@

   device=$(cat $dev/device)

+ # Skip devices containing the installation medium
+ [ -e "$dev/installation_medium" ] && continue
+
   # Skip software RAID (mdadm) devices (/dev/md/X and /dev/mdX)
   $(echo "$device" | grep -Eq "/dev/md/?[0-9]*$") && continue

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Reassigning back to partman-base; this is better fixed there.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package partman-base - 129ubuntu6

---------------
partman-base (129ubuntu6) jaunty; urgency=low

  * Support partman/filter_mounted preseeding again, for some special cases
    that know they can get away with modifying partitions after the one
    containing the installation medium (LP: #354573).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:28:17 +0100