How do I ask apt-get to skip any interactive post-install configuration steps?

Question

I have a server build script which uses apt-get to install packages. It then puts pre-written configuration files directly in place, so the interactive post-install configuration dialog in packages such as postfix is not needed. How do I skip this stage of the installation? It creates a piece of manual intervention that I would rather avoid.

I am aware of the -qq option, but the manpage warns against using it without specifying a no-action modifier. I do want to perform an action, I just want to suppress a specific part of it.

Answer 1

You can do a couple of things for avoiding this

First set the variable export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive then you can run apt-get -y [packagename], this should do exactly what you want.