Autoinstall on corporate network

[SimbiotVenom]

Do you have any insight into a possible way to configure Autoinstall,yaml, rather than create a pre-installed OS, so that when the PC starts, it prompts you to enter a domain name and thus launch the Landscape installation, and then transfers the authd configuration files to the PC so that after a reboot, you can log in immediately with your corporate account.

[ian-weisser]

Moved to a new topic.

In the future,

• Please do not ping individual users for help.
• Please do not hijack testing topic with unrelated help questions.

[MesterPerfect]

What you’re describing is partially possible, but not exactly in the interactive way you’re imagining.

Ubuntu Autoinstall (cloud-init based) is designed to be fully non-interactive, so prompting the user for input (like domain name) during installation is not supported directly.

However, you can achieve a very similar result using one of these approaches:

• Predefine everything in the autoinstall YAML (domain, join commands, Landscape setup)
• Use a dynamic config source (HTTP server) to generate the config per machine
• Or better: run a first-boot provisioning script that asks for domain info and then:

• joins the machine using realm join
• installs and configures landscape-client
• sets up SSSD/authd

In practice, most enterprise setups avoid interactive installs and instead rely on:

• predefined configs
• or automated provisioning after first boot

So your idea is valid, but it would typically be implemented as a post-install step, not during autoinstall itself.

[SimbiotVenom]

Thanks for the suggestion, I will experiment.

My target is, preinstall Ubuntu from USB not via network, her I can use Autoinstall.yaml, I can make user account creation non interactive, so it will be handled by GDM after OS installation.

But the target is to provide a laptop with preinstalled Ubuntu to user, so he will enable it, enter domain name, pass the authentication and through Landscape delivered authd configuration, sign in via corporate account.

Something like preinstalled Windows, where the user can select corporate usage, enter corporate credentials and start the enrollment process.

[MesterPerfect]

That makes sense, and your goal is very similar to the Windows OOBE experience.

However, Autoinstall itself is designed to be non-interactive, so it’s not the right place to ask the user for domain details.

The usual approach is:

1. Use Autoinstall (from USB) to install the system and required packages (realmd, sssd, landscape-client).

2. On first boot, run a small script or service that:

   • asks for domain name and credentials
   • runs realm join
   • registers with Landscape and applies configuration

3. Reboot → user logs in with their corporate account.

So instead of doing everything during install, you split it into:
installation → first-boot setup → ready system

This is currently the closest way to achieve a Windows-like enrollment flow on Ubuntu.

[SimbiotVenom]

You are partially right.

My target indeed is to use Autoinstall.yaml for OS preinstallation in unattended mode, so the local End User Support Engineer will preinstall Ubuntu and provide the the laptop to user, sometimes via delivery agency.

All other steps mut be self service. Currently since I disabled the user account steps in Autoinstall.yaml the installer is skipping the user creation step and on first start it handles GDM.

Since in Ubuntu 26.04 we have option to manage the device via Landscape before user login, like it does Windows on OOBE, I want to find a way to enable the window that activate Landscape installation by domain name tied to Landscape. So Landscape will be able to activate authd and and provide managed account generation option, instead of GDM.

As I can understand, currently this scenario 100% realized in Ubuntu interactive installation, but what to do with the preinstalled OS?

Our partners can even ship Ubuntu certified laptops to users directly. But how to solve the Landscape/authd enablement in this case?

I opened this request, since ther is no information about new capabilities of Autinstall or Whitelabel files.

Will try to make it clear since we can have misunderstanding because of similar names.

I didn’t use on-premises Active Directory. The device must be manged by Landscape only. The domain name will be connected to OIDC so the user will use this step to download appropriate management as a self service.