From: David Leadbeater <dgl@dgl.cx>
Subject: Re: Allow autoinstall response file to select default answer
To: obsd@mulh.net
Cc: tech@openbsd.org
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2026 17:19:09 +1100

On Wed, Oct 07, 2026 at 03:40:05PM -0400, obsd@mulh.net wrote:
> On 2026-10-06 16:54:22, Stuart wrote:
> > space is *seriously* limited in some install media).
> 
> Here is a revised patch for consideration.
> Same behaviour and allows for default answer.

This is a bit more understandable. But like said elsewhere in the thread
I think this behaviour needs some more thought.

It would be good to see a change to autoinstall(8) to document the
existing behaviour of handling multiple answers to the same question and
then an addition documenting this new default handling.

I tested with the below. Note that already you can use "done" to answer
the default for the set name question, so the main place I see your diff
applying is for the server directory question. (If your site set only
drops unique files and you are careful you can swap these two blocks
shown below and it works even before your diff, but we probably don't
want to be recommending people do that as there are ways that could lead
to a broken install...)

	Location of sets = http
	HTTP Server = mirror.aarnet.edu.au
	Server directory =
	Set name(s) = done

	Location of sets = http
	HTTP Server = mirror.home.arpa
	Server directory = pub/site
	Set name(s) = site??.tgz
	# Drop "INSTALL.arch" part of question so this matches for any arch
	not found. Use sets found here anyway = yes
	Directory does not contain = yes

"Server directory =" is definitely a bit magical. We could take
advantage of the fact manual installer answers starting with an "!" are
handled differently and use a special value like "!default" (which would
be a few more bytes here, but I think it might make autoinstall files
clearer and is also much clearer to document).