install/38294: sysinst upgrade installation may be improved

[martin%duskware.de@localhost]

>Number:         38294
>Category:       install
>Synopsis:       sysinst upgrade installation may be improved
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       high
>Responsible:    install-manager
>State:          open
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Mar 25 13:15:00 +0000 2008
>Originator:     Martin Husemann
>Release:        NetBSD 4.99.58
>Organization:
The NetBSD Foundation
>Environment:
System: NetBSD sunny-weather.duskware.de 4.99.58 NetBSD 4.99.58 (SUNNY) #74: 
Tue Mar 25 13:49:05 CET 2008 
martin%night-porter.duskware.de@localhost:/usr/src/sys/arch/sparc64/compile/SUNNY
 sparc64
Architecture: sparc64
Machine: sparc64
>Description:

Usually, when doing an upgrade installation via sysinst, there will be errors
in the "postinstall" phase (e.g. accounts the user is expected to create
manually). These are reported and scroll by, then in the end installation
stops due to errors, user does not see the real error messages any more,
and has to press enter to continue.

This is confusing and mostly useless. An experienced user will reboot the
system and run postinstall manually, capturing the output. We should do
better.

Besides, this happens very early in the installation, and after pressing
enter to continue there is a lot more sets to unpack typically.

>How-To-Repeat:
s/a

>Fix:
Capture postinstall output and offer a pager if exit status indicates failure?

Or even beter: log only the error messages separately. Then continue 
installation, and at the very end show the errors again and offer a shell
to fix. After returning from the shell, offer to run "postinstall check"
again, repeat untill user/postinstall are happy.