This page provides a list of possible questions and possible problems that might appear during the installation process.

KiWI Installation Screen

Welcome to the KiWI Installation Screen
Now Ready to Begin Install

You may now begin the installation or you may go back to the configure process:
(1) Begin Installation
(-) Restart Configure Process

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Once you choose to begin the installation, the system will try to validate that the configure settings are sane.
If you used the configure process without any manual editing, then this should not be a problem for you.
When this does have a problem, you will get messages about variables being invalid.

After the validation process, installation time questions must be asked.
These questions are asked here only if they cannot be asked during the configure process.

The installation should only take minutes, depending on how powerful your hardware is.
If you are using the squash schema, it may take much more time because the compressed files will be regenerated.
Continue to the finishing page after the installation is complete, unless things did not go as planned.

Messages About Variables Being Invalid

Every configure option you selected has its data stored in some text file.
This text file can be manually edited by you and even copied from one system to another.
When the configure system has a bug or this text file is corrupt or has invalid data, variable validation errors will happen.
These errors will explain which variable is invalid and attempt to explain what a valid variable is.

The following are some of the types of invalid variable errors you may encounter:

• ..is empty
• ..is not one of: utc, local
• ..is not one of: classic, simple, squash, squish, encrypted, custom
• ..is not one of: yes, no
• ..is not one of: use_password, use_file=
• ..is use_file=, but a filename must be specified (such as: use_file=myfile)
• Both root autologin and admin autologin cannot be enabled, choose one or the other
• The squish/squash method can only be device, memory, or extract

Should you get an invalid variable error, you will be prompted to press enter to continue.
Pressing enter here will restart the configure process; this is the recommended action.
Please take note of the names of the variables that are invalid; you can type this in the text editor on the text editor screen.
For advanced users, you can use this opportunity to use the text editor for manually editing the "settings.install" text file location in the home directory.

Installation Time Questions

Not every question can be asked during configure time; some very specific questions must be asked at the start of installation.
The only questions at this time are decryption questions.
If you did not specify the Encrypted option as either your Destination Schema or your Destination Subschema, then you will not be asked any installation time questions.
For those of you who are using encryption, the encrypted devices must be decrypted so that the distribution may be installed onto the appropriate devices.
The only questions you will be asked are to type in your passwords for each encrypted device.
If the Decryption Method is set to Use Key File, then you will not be asked a question.

Things did not go as Planned

Problems do happen and this is a short guide about the known possible problems.
Most of the problems that happen will require technical knowledge and experience.
This guide will explain what the problem is and how one might go about fixing it.
Should these problems occur, seek technical support such as a Linux Users Group in your area.

#0001: The root partition '' is not a valid LUKS-encrypted partition or cannot be found
This distribution only supports LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup) encryptions.
If this is not the problem, then the root partition device was probably not found or is invalid.
Find out more about LUKS at: http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/.

#0002: Failed to decrypt the root partition ''
Maybe your password is mis-typed, or maybe you are using the wrong partition.
Either way, the system was unable to decrypt the password.
See error #0001 for a URL link to the LUKS encryption website.

#0003: Failed to decrypt the root partition '' with the keyfile ''
Maybe your keyfile is corrupt; maybe you are using the wrong keyfile; or maybe you are using the wrong partition.
Either way, the system was unable to decrypt the password.
See error #0001 for a URL link to the LUKS encryption website.

#0004: The home partition '' is not a valid LUKS-encrypted partition or cannot be found
This is like error #0001, but is about the home partition instead of the root partition.

#0005: Failed to decrypt the home partition ''
This is like error #0002, but is about the home partition instead of the root partition.

#0006: Failed to decrypt the home partition '' with the keyfile ''
This is like error #0003, but is about the home partition instead of the root partition.

#0007: Cannot create the directory ''
This problem generally happens when the device is read-only or the file system is corrupt.
Another possibility is that you do not have proper permissions to create directories at the specified location.

#0008: Cannot mount '' on the directory ''
Possible Causes:

1. the directory does not exist
2. the device does not exist
3. there is a problem accessing the device

Viewing the dmesg log should help show details.
This can be done by using the text editor to open the files at /var/log/kernel with /var/log/kernel/current containing the most recent messages.

#0009: Cannot find installation files at '' or at ''
This happens when the squash files cannot be found on the installation device.
The installation device contains all of the files that are to be installed and is generally on the installation device you used to boot.
The searching algorithm is very basic and only searches for the bin.sfs file; if that file is missing, then this error will be shown.
It is also possible that the files may have been corrupted.

#0010: Something went wrong during the system extraction process
The extraction is done through a separate script called extract_system.
This separate script should report its own errors; try scrolling up to see what they are.
Common problems are: out of disk space, missing squash files, and corrupt squash files.

#0011: Failed to create decryption settings boot directory at:
This error means that the directory that contains the decryption settings for booting to a decrypted device could not be created.
This is the same kind of error as error #0007.

#0012: Failed to create decryption settings rootfs device file at:
This error means that the decryption settings file for the rootfs device could not be created.
This is the same kind of error as error #0007, but with files instead of directories.

#0013: Failed to create decryption settings rootfs decryption key file at:
This error means that the decryption key file for the rootfs device could not be created.
This is the same kind of error as error #0007, but with files instead of directories.

#0014: Failed to create decryption settings home device file at:
This is like error #0011, but it is about the home partition instead of the root partition.

#0015: Failed to create decryption settings home decryption key file at:
This is like error #0012, but it is about the home partition instead of the root partition.

#0016: Failed to setup hostname:
The hostname file could not be written to.
This could happen for reasons mentioned at error #0007.

#0017: Failed to setup system timezone:
The system timezone file could not be written to.
This could happen for reasons mentioned at error #0007.

#0018: Failed to setup system clock:
The system clock file could not be written to.
This could happen for reasons mentioned at error #0007.

#0019: Failed to setup default qingy settings:
The qingy settings file could not be written to.
This could happen for reasons mentioned at error #0007.

#0020: Failed to add user to qingy allowed sessions file:
The qingy root user allowed sessions file could not be written to.
This could happen for reasons mentioned at error #0007.

#0021: Failed to update root user settings for password file:
The installer uses a program called sed to rewrite the contents of the password file.
Something may have caused sed to fail; you may have to scroll up to see the error.
This could also happen for reasons mentioned at error #0007.

#0022: Failed to update root user settings for shadow file:
This is like error #0021, but it is about the shadow file instead of the password file.

#0023: Failed to update root user settings for group file:
This is like error #0021, but it is about the group file instead of the password file.

#0024: Failed to rename root user home directory:
The root user home directory could not be moved to a new name.
This could happen for reasons mentioned at error #0007.

#0025: Failed to setup the auto-login settings in:
The qingy settings file could not be written to.
This could happen for reasons mentioned at error #0007.

#0026: Unable to temporarily mount the system, reason:
The squash files are mounted through a loopback mount so that the user can chroot into a mockup system.
This error means that the squash files failed to be mounted onto their target directories.

#0027: Failed to add the admin user:
The admin user is added via a chroot into the target system.
If something goes wrong with either the chroot process or the adduser process, this error is shown.
You may have to scroll up to see what that error is.

#0028: Failed to setup the password for the admin user '' in:
This performs a chroot just like error #0027 does, but it adds a password for the admin user instead of adding the admin user.

#0029: Failed to regenerate the squash file:
Once users and passwords are added to the target system, the squash file gets regenerated if the squash schema is in use.
The most common problem here is running out of space to regenerate the squash file.

#0030: Unable to find or access the path to the boot loader files:
The installer tries to find the GNU GRUB boot loader files on the boot device.
These files are expected to be stored in the path boot/live/ of the boot device.
If the grub directory is not find within that path, then this error is shown.

#0031: Unable to install boot loader, could not find the boot device
The GNU GRUB boot loader uses a naming system that is different from, and less flexible than, the device naming system provided under the Linux kernel.
The boot device must be determined through an algorithm that guesses the numbers based on the device name.
If there was a problem in the conversion process, then this error is presented.
If this (or any GRUB) error happens, then your system will not be able to boot on its own until you manually install GRUB or try the installation process again.

#0032: Unable to install boot loader, the automated installer is not designed to safely install to a boot device of ''
First read about error #0031.
This guessing is only done for standard devices that begin with the kernel name of sd, such as sda1 or sdc2.
This is done primarily for safety reasons, but also because the names of other devices may not translate as easily from the Linux kernel naming scheme to the GNU GRUB naming scheme.

#0033: Unable to install boot loader, the converted disk_number '' is invalid
First read about error #0031.
This error is presented when the guessed number for the device that contains the boot partition is not sane.

#0034: Unable to install boot loader, the converted partition_number '' is invalid
First read about error #0031.
This error is presented when the guessed number for the boot partition is not sane.

#0035: Something went wrong while trying to install the boot loader
This error is presented when GNU GRUB fails to install itself to the boot device.
You may have to scroll up to see if GNU GRUB provided an error message for why it failed.
If this error happens, then your system will not be able to boot on its own until you manually install GRUB or try the installation process again.