Comment 1 for bug 860492

This tool is designed to 'enlist' with a cobbler server for future deployment. This tool is the first basic step of hardware discovery (normally of new hardware), then it is no-longer used.

In the current form, the only useful data sent home is the interfaces mac addresses. Next cycle, more data about the hardware will be sent home - including disk sizes, RAM and if the system supports virt extensions.

There is pending support to add it to the cd menu for people to 'try it'... however the main target is the ability to do netbooting with the debconf questions pre-answered, including cobbler credentials.

The udeb is never used on a live system, it's only target is to discover hardware then the system halts. debian-installer is hijacked to provide a volatile environment to run this tool. When this tool is used, the system should always halt.

It does not have SSL support, as debian-installer cannot currently retrieve ssl preseeds (bug 833994). It seemed pointless to receive the credentials via http and post back using https, when the returning data doesn't exactly add provided data to what was already received insecurely.

However, when bug 833994 is resolved - we will look at adding ssl support (and maybe even include the fingerprint via the preseed for self-signed).