[ubuntu-us-mi] completely automated install of Lucid using preseeding

[Robert Citek]

Has anyone here done a completely automated install of Ubuntu 10.04
using preseeding?

My eventual goal is to completely automate the installation of Ubuntu.
That is, given a new machine, I want to plug in power, plug in
Ethernet, turn it on, and walk away. When I come back, I want to be
presented with a login prompt to a completely new Ubuntu installation.

Can this be done with Ubuntu and preseeding, or should I look at
alternative methods such as cloning?

Regards,
- Robert

[Steve Romanow]

Post by Robert Citek
Has anyone here done a completely automated install of Ubuntu 10.04
using preseeding?
My eventual goal is to completely automate the installation of Ubuntu.
That is, given a new machine, I want to plug in power, plug in
Ethernet, turn it on, and walk away. When I come back, I want to be
presented with a login prompt to a completely new Ubuntu installation.
Can this be done with Ubuntu and preseeding, or should I look at
alternative methods such as cloning?
Regards,
- Robert

I think FOG may be capable of such a thing.

[Scott Moser]

Post by Robert Citek
Has anyone here done a completely automated install of Ubuntu 10.04
using preseeding?
My eventual goal is to completely automate the installation of Ubuntu.
That is, given a new machine, I want to plug in power, plug in
Ethernet, turn it on, and walk away. When I come back, I want to be
presented with a login prompt to a completely new Ubuntu installation.
Can this be done with Ubuntu and preseeding, or should I look at
alternative methods such as cloning?

It is absolutely possible. There are likely countless implementations of
plumbing for it. Heres one that we use for automated installations of
ubuntu-server for UEC:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kirkland/+junk/uec-auto/changes

There are likely others. That one goes from sending a "wake on lan"
packet to preseeding. Its probably underdocumented , but ...

Scott

[Robert Citek]

Post by Robert Citek
Can this be done with Ubuntu and preseeding, or should I look at
alternative methods such as cloning?

It is absolutely possible. ?There are likely countless implementations of
plumbing for it. ?Heres one that ?we use for automated installations of
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kirkland/+junk/uec-auto/changes

Good to know that it is possible. Before I get into PXE and all that,
I'm going to try to get familiar with preseeding using a USB stick.
I've been reading through this:

http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/apb.html

and this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/installation-guide/i386/preseed-using.html

which are OK, but not exactly simple to follow How-Tos.

Got any good recommendations for how to get preseeding working with a USB stick?

Regards,
- Robert

[Robert Citek]

So far my preseed kinda works. Some questions are answered, but not
all. For example, questions about keyboard and language are still
asked.

Anyone have a sample syslinux text.cfg file which shows the
appropriate boot options to add?

[1] https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/installation-guide/i386/preseed-contents.html

Regards,
- Robert

[Robert Citek]

Let me expand that to say this does not work for me:

append noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent
file=/cdrom/preseed/preseed.cfg initrd=/install/initrd.gz locale=en_US
console-setup/ask_detect=false console-setup/layoutcode=us

Regards,
- Robert

So far my preseed kinda works. ?Some questions are answered, but not
all. ?For example, questions about keyboard and language are still
asked.
Anyone have a sample syslinux text.cfg file which shows the
appropriate boot options to add?
[1] https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/installation-guide/i386/preseed-contents.html
Regards,
- Robert

[Robert Citek]

Making a bit more progress. This syslinux stanz seems to skip over
the initial keyboard questions:

label auto
menu label ^Auto install
kernel /install/vmlinuz
append noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent
preeseed/file=/cdrom/preseed/preseed.cfg initrd=/install/initrd.gz
locale=en_US setup/layoutcode=en_US console-setup/ask_detect=false
console-setup/layoutcode=us auto=true

However, the installation is still stopping to ask about hostname and
timezone. Here's what appear to the be the relevant sections from the
preseed file:

d-i netcfg/get_hostname string unassigned-hostname
d-i netcfg/get_domain string unassigned-domain
d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto

d-i clock-setup/utc-auto boolean true
d-i clock-setup/utc boolean true
d-i time/zone string US/Pacific
d-i clock-setup/ntp boolean true

What's odd is that the installation process wants me to confirm
Eastern time zone even though I've specified Pacific in the preseed
file.

Any thoughts?

Regards,
- Robert

[Steve Romanow]

Post by Robert Citek
What's odd is that the installation process wants me to confirm
Eastern time zone even though I've specified Pacific in the preseed
file.
Any thoughts?
Regards,
- Robert

Is the src for the install process available? Maybe looking for what it
expects in time/zone may help.

[Robert Citek]

Post by Robert Citek
What's odd is that the installation process wants me to confirm
Eastern time zone even though I've specified Pacific in the preseed
file.
Any thoughts?
Regards,
- Robert

Is the src for the install process available? ?Maybe looking for what it
expects in time/zone may help.

Probably. And probably. But probably not worth the effort at this
time. All I need an install to do is two things:

1) setup the drives
2) install enough of an OS to get a shell

Timezone, user accounts, packages, and everything else can be done
later using the shell or a scripting language. I was hoping
preseeding would be able to do those two things quickly and simply,
but I'm getting bogged down in minutia that is irrelevant for my use
case. The lack of clear documentation and sample cases makes
preseeding move down the priority list.

Regards,
- Robert

[Jeff Hanson]

Probably. ?And probably. ?But probably not worth the effort at this
1) setup the drives
2) install enough of an OS to get a shell
Timezone, user accounts, packages, and everything else can be done
later using the shell or a scripting language. ?I was hoping
preseeding would be able to do those two things quickly and simply,
but I'm getting bogged down in minutia that is irrelevant for my use
case. ?The lack of clear documentation and sample cases makes
preseeding move down the priority list.

The alternative is kickstart which is partially supported by the
Debian installer.

[Robert Citek]

Post by Jeff Hanson
The alternative is kickstart which is partially supported by the
Debian installer.

It was a toss up whether I try kickstart or simple cloning (i.e. using
dd) next. I went with cloning, and that's working very well: super
simple and fast. I need to figure out the details of how I'm going to
resize the LVM partition once I've laid down the image on the new
drive, but that's easily workable.

I'll return to preseeding, especially with PXE, as I see that as a
better long-term solution. But cloning was the simple and quick
solution that I needed for right now.

Thanks for all the responses.

Regards,
- Robert

[Steve Romanow]

Post by Scott Moser

Post by Robert Citek
Has anyone here done a completely automated install of Ubuntu 10.04
using preseeding?
My eventual goal is to completely automate the installation of Ubuntu.
That is, given a new machine, I want to plug in power, plug in
Ethernet, turn it on, and walk away. When I come back, I want to be
presented with a login prompt to a completely new Ubuntu installation.
Can this be done with Ubuntu and preseeding, or should I look at
alternative methods such as cloning?

It is absolutely possible. There are likely countless implementations of
plumbing for it. Heres one that we use for automated installations of
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kirkland/+junk/uec-auto/changes
There are likely others. That one goes from sending a "wake on lan"
packet to preseeding. Its probably underdocumented , but ...
Scott

I wonder if the kvm scripting for package selection, openssh setup,
ip-address and whatnot can be adapted for buildout of new non-vm's? The
method they discuss in the jeos docs?