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If you are using initrd preseeding, you only have to make sure a file named preseed.cfg is included in the root directory of the initrd. The installer will automatically check if this file is present and load it.
For the other preseeding methods you need to tell the installer what file to use when you boot it. This is normally done by passing the kernel a boot parameter, either manually at boot time or by editing the bootloader configuration file
If you do specify the preconfiguration file in the bootloader configuration, you might change the configuration so you don’t need to hit enter to boot the installer. For syslinux this means setting the timeout to 1 in syslinux.cfg.
To make sure the installer gets the right preconfiguration file, you can optionally specify a checksum for the file. Currently this needs to be a md5sum, and if specified it must match the preconfiguration file or the installer will refuse to use it.
Boot parameters to specify:
- if you’re netbooting: preseed/url=http://host/path/to/preseed.cfg preseed/url/checksum=5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d
- or preseed/url=ftp://host/path/to/preseed.cfg
preseed/url/checksum=5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d
- or preseed/url=tftp://host/path/to/preseed.cfg
preseed/url/checksum=5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d
- if you’re booting a remastered CD or image: preseed/file=/cdrom/preseed.cfg preseed/file/checksum=5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d
- if you’re installing from USB media (put the preconfiguration file in the toplevel directory of the USB stick):
preseed/file=/hd-media/preseed.cfg preseed/file/checksum=5da499872becccfeda2c4872f9171c3d
Note that preseed/url can be shortened to just url, preseed/file to just file and
preseed/file/checksum to just preseed-md5 when they are passed as boot parameters.