97 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
97 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Network Debian Install
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date: 2017-03-12 22:00:00
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---
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This is a follow-up of the previous *Preseeded Debian Install* article,
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this time to add the capability of asking for a headless install through
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SSH.
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I received every part of my future storage server and needed to install
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Debian on it. As I did not want to hook up a keyboard and display on it
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just to install the OS, I looked into the Debian Installer *Network Console*.
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The concept is really simple, as always: The installer can be seeded through
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the first parts of the installation until the network is available and
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then let the user continue through SSH.
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First I needed to add a new entry in the ISOLINUX menu that can be selected.
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```
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cat >> isolinux/txt.cfg <<EOE
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label install-stretch-netinstall
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menu label ^Install Stretch $TARGETNAME (netinstall)
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kernel /install.amd/vmlinuz
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append vga=788 initrd=/install.amd/initrd.gz auto=true file=/cdrom/preseed-stretch-netboot.cfg
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EOE
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```
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For now, the entry is not automatically selected, nor booting automatically
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if the user does nothing. As this is not really useful for a headless,
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we need to configure it so that it is automatically selected and boots after
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a timeout.
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Setting a timeout at something more than 0 enables the automatic boot of
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the default entry. As the Debian ISO ship with no timeout, the script has
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to set this timeout to something more, such as 5 seconds. As there are
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multiple files that contains a timeout, I opted for a broad replace in
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the configuration files. I also deleted the default entry so that our
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new entry can be selected and executed.
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```
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perl -pi -e 's/timeout 0/timeout 50/' isolinux/*.cfg
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perl -pi -e 's/\s*menu default//' isolinux/*.cfg
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```
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Next I needed to check which questions needed answering and which questions
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are asked later during the installation. For that I trimmed my generated
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preseed file from before until the installer got to the network part. I
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got the following minimal preseed :
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```
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d-i debian-installer/language string en
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d-i debian-installer/country string GB
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d-i debian-installer/locale string en_GB.UTF-8
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d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select ch(fr)
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d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto
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d-i netcfg/get_hostname string newdebian
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d-i netcfg/get_domain string
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```
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Then, I needed to enable the *Network Console* so that I can log into
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the installer to continue. After looking through some documentations (and
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some contradictory information), I got the following lines:
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```
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d-i debian-installer/language string en
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d-i debian-installer/country string GB
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d-i debian-installer/locale string en_GB.UTF-8
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d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select ch(fr)
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d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto
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d-i netcfg/get_hostname string newdebian
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d-i netcfg/get_domain string
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d-i netcfg/get_nameservers string
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d-i netcfg/get_ipaddress string
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d-i netcfg/get_netmask string 255.255.255.0
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d-i netcfg/get_gateway string
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d-i preseed/early_command string anna-install network-console
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d-i network-console/password password install
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d-i network-console/password-again password install
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d-i network-console/start select continue
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```
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Now, once the USB device is inserted, the computer will boot on it, wait
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5 seconds for an user input that will not come, execute the Installer
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passing it the NetworkInstall preseed, configure the first steps and then
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wait for a user to connect by SSH `ssh installer@<IP>` with the `install`
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password.
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The script is available on my [Git repository](https://github.com/tschwery/debian-preseeded-iso)
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and will be kept updated as needed.
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