Questions

Agama allows you to automate the process of answering questions during an unattended installation. This feature is crucial for creating truly hands-off Agama profiles, as it eliminates the need for user interaction when the installer encounters a choice or requires specific input.

This section explains how to define policies for answering questions and provides a list of the question classes you can configure.

Configuring automatic answers

Automatic answers are configured within the questions key of your Agama profile. This object has two main properties: policy and answers.

{
  "questions": {
    "policy": "auto",
    "answers": [
      {
        "class": "multipathActivation",
        "action": "yes"
      },
      {
        "class": "luksActivation",
        "action": "decrypt",
        "value": "my-secret-password",
        "data": {
          "device": "/dev/sda22"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

The `policy` property

The policy property determines the default behavior for questions the installer encounters. It's a string with two possible values:

"user" (default): The installer will use any pre-defined answers from the answers list. If a question is encountered that does not have a matching answer, the installer will ask the user for a response.
"auto": The installer will use any pre-defined answers from the answers list. If a question is encountered that does not have a matching answer, the installer will automatically select the default value for that question. If there's no default, the installation will fail.

The `answers` property

The answers property is an array of objects, where each object represents a pre-defined answer for a specific question.

Each answer object can have the following properties:

class: a unique identifier for the question (e.g., "multipathActivation").
text: the full text of the question.
action: the action to use as the answer (e.g., "yes", "decrypt", "Retry").
value: an additional value that is required for questions that also need an extra piece of information, like a password (e.g., luksActivation with the decrypt action) or a plain string (e.g., loadConfigError, which can use it to specify an alternative URL).
data: an optional object with additional key-value pairs to match the question.

Deprecated properties

answer and password are still accepted as aliases of action and value respectively, but only for backward compatibility. Do not use them in new profiles, as they might be removed in the future.

The installer will attempt to match a question to an answer by checking the class, text, and data properties.

The installer performs a partial match on the data object. If your answer's data entry contains a subset of the properties in the question's data, it will still be considered a match if the values for the specified properties are identical. For example, a question might contain { "id": "123", "checksum": "abc", "name": "file.txt" }, but you only need to specify { "checksum": "abc" } to match it.

Beware of retries

The Retry value for the action property could get the installation into an infinity loop. Avoid using Retry if you are not totally sure that the question is going to success at some point. In the future, this problem could be overcome by defining a maximum number of attempts.

Supported question classes

The following table lists the possible question classes, their descriptions, and the data you can use to match them.

Class names were renamed

Question classes used to follow an inconsistent mix of naming schemes (dotted, namespaced, snake_case). They now use a flat camelCase identifier instead (e.g., multipathActivation instead of storage.activate_multipath). The old names are still recognized for backward compatibility, so existing answers keep working, but new profiles should use the current names listed below. The SLE-16 name column shows the corresponding deprecated name used in SLES 16.0 and openSUSE Leap 16.0 (see this page); it's left blank for classes that didn't exist in that version.

Class	SLE-16 name	Description	Possible Answers	Available Data
`autoyastPassword`	`autoyast.password`	When a password is needed to decrypt a GPG-encrypted AutoYaST profile.	`ok`, `cancel` (default)	None. It uses a password field, so the answer must be provided through the `value` property.
`autoyastPopup`	`autoyast.popup`	Generic question used while converting an AutoYaST profile (it replaces calls to `Yast2::Popup` in the AutoYaST code it reuses).	Varies (e.g., `ok`; `yes`, `no`; `continue`, `cancel`)	None.
`autoyastUnsupported`	`autoyast.unsupported`	When there are unsupported elements in an AutoYaST profile.	`Abort`, `Continue` (default)	`planned`: elements to be supported in the future. `unsupported`: unsupported elements.
`gpgVerificationError`		When the GPG signature of a file cannot be verified.	`Yes`, `No` (default)	`filename`: The name of the file.
`importGpg`	`software.import_gpg`	When a signature is signed with an unknown GPG key.	`Trust`, `Skip` (default)	`id`, `name`, `fingerprint`: Details of the unknown key.
`loadConfigError`	`load.retry`	When the installer fails to load the profile (e.g., because of a network problem). The answer can also include an alternative URL to retry from.	`Retry`, `Manual` (default)	`error`: The text of the error message. `originalValue`: The URL that failed to be loaded.
`luksActivation`	`storage.luks_activation`	When a LUKS encrypted device is detected and requires a password to probe it.	`skip`, `decrypt` (default)	`device`: The device name. `label`: The device label. `size`: The device size. `attempt`: The number of the current attempt.
`multipathActivation`	`storage.activate_multipath`	When it looks like the system has multipath and if it should be activated.	`yes` (default), `no`
`noDigest`	`software.digest.no_digest`	When a file is in a signed repository, but is not listed in the list of checksums.	`Yes`, `No` (default)
`packageInstallError`	`software.package_error.install_error`	When a package could not be installed (e.g., because of an I/O error while unpacking it).	`Retry`, `Ignore` (no default)	`package`: The package name.
`packageProviderError`	`software.package_error.provide_error`	When a package failed to be provided, e.g., due to an IO error or signature verification failure.	`Retry`, `Ignore`, `Continue`	`package`: The name of the package.
`packageScriptProblem`	`software.script_problem`	When a package script (e.g., a `%post` scriptlet) failed.	`Retry`, `Continue` (no default)	`details`: The details of the failure.
`retryInstallation`		When downloading and installing the packages failed as a whole and it asks whether to retry the process.	`Yes`, `No` (default)
`retryScript`		When a user-defined script (e.g., a pre-script or a post-script) fails and it asks whether to run it again.	`Yes`, `No` (default)	`name`: The script name. `stderr`: The script's error output. `exit_status`: The exit code. Only present when the script itself failed (not for other I/O errors).
`selfSignedRegcert`	`registration.certificate`	When the registration server uses a self-signed certificate.	`Trust` (default), `Reject`	`issueDate`, `expirationDate`: Certificate validity dates. `issuer`, `organization`: Certificate issuer details. `sha1`, `sha256`: Certificate fingerprints.
`storageCommitError`	`storage.commit_error`	When some storage actions failed and if it should continue.	`yes`, `no` (default)	`details`: The details of the failure.
`unknownDigest`	`software.digest.unknown_digest`	When a file has a checksum, but the expected checksum is not known. This question type is also used when the checksum does not match.	`Yes`, `No` (default)
`unknownGpg`	`software.unknown_gpg`	When a file is signed by an unknown key.	`Yes`, `No`, `Trust`, `Skip`	`id`: The key ID. `filename`: The name of the signed file.
`unsignedFile`	`software.unsigned_file`	When a file from a repository is not digitally signed.	`Yes`, `No` (default)	`filename`: The name of the file.
`writeFileError`		When a user-defined file cannot be written to disk.	`Yes`, `No` (default)	`attempt`: The number of the current attempt. `details`: The details of the failure.
`writeScriptError`		When a user-defined script cannot be written to disk.	`Yes`, `No` (default)	`attempt`: The number of the current attempt. `details`: The details of the failure.

info

Check this page if you are using SLES 16.0 or openSUSE Leap 16.0.

Configuring automatic answers​

The policy property​

The answers property​

Supported question classes​

Configuring automatic answers

The `policy` property

The `answers` property

Supported question classes