Automated Server installer config file reference

Server Guide
41

Thank you so much ! The problem i meet fixed with your advise

42

Hello @bam,

According to https://netplan.readthedocs.io/en/stable/netplan-yaml/#properties-for-device-type-wifis, you can use the wifis directive when configuring the network.

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43

The documentation state that

thanks to a bug, the version of Subiquity released with 20.04 GA forces you to write this with an extra network: key like so:
Later versions support this syntax too for compatibility but if you can assume a newer version you should use the former.

More helpful would be from which version on we can use the fixed syntax. Was is fixed in the 20.04.1 .iso? Would it also be fixed if refresh-installer is enabled?

I would suggest: “Later versions (i.e. 20.04.1) and newer support …”

44

The section for source: suggests to use “ubuntu-server-minimized” for the id, but according to Bug #1974201 “Impossible to make a minized install with a full a...” : Bugs : subiquity and https://github.com/canonical/subiquity/pull/1375 it should really be ubuntu-server-minimal.

Also the timezone: section seems to get into trouble if source: is set to ubuntu-server-minimal.

45

source:
id: “ubuntu-server-minimized”

should be working according to doc, but it is not.

not with “”, nor ‘’, nor without.

46

The conclusive way to know the value of source is to open an ISO and look at casper/install-sources.yaml. It’s difficult to document these in the reference because these are chosen at build time of the ISO, and may change over time, and do differ between the server and desktop ISOs. So yes, for current live-server, you would want to specify either ubuntu-server-minimal or ubuntu-server, and ubuntu-desktop-minimal or ubuntu-desktop for desktop.

If you have an ISO without install-sources.yaml, you have one that predates a minimal install source, so ubuntu-server is effectively your only option.

Thanks for the note about the minimized typo, that will be corrected as part of larger doc changes.

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47

Yep, this does actually work. Thanks for the hint. And many thanks for the future doc update, this saves hours for other ppl :slight_smile:

48

Another thing that came up to my attention:

  ssh:
    install-server: false

but SSH server is installed nevertheless

And a third thing I’ve remarked:

in /var/log/installer/autoinstall-user-data

I see this:

  apt:
    mirror-selection:
      primary:
      - arches: &id001
[..]
      - arches: &id002

Not sure if this &id001 and &id002 needs to be in the config file or what it does, but in the end it runs through with that setting. Just a heads-up, as I was unable to find anything in the documentation about that.

also, when you rewrite the doc, please put in some netplan examples, as I wasted some time there to get the parentheses right. I’ve prepared an example, which also avoids the deprecated gateway4 notation:

network:
    version: 2
    ethernets:
      ens160:
        dhcp4: false
        dhcp6: false
        addresses: [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/24]
        nameservers:
          addresses: [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
          search: ["searchdomain1.tld", "searchdomain2.tld"]
        routes:
          - to: default
            via: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Best regards, Tom (had to put 3 post into 1 as the new user limitations hit me)

49

That’s a bug. Essentially, openssh-server was accidentally included in the base image copied during installation.

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