Please test autoinstalls for 20.04!

[clorichel]

Thanks @dipo003 for the tip!

@mwhudson I understand it’s a 2+ years old post, but there definitely is some weirdness / documentation issue going on here

Working on some UEFI hardware, according to https://curtin.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topics/storage.html the grub_device is a key from the Disk command, and NOT a key from the Partition command.

Yet if I don’t repeat the grub_device key both in the type: disk and the type: partition (the one that is afterwards mounted to /bios/efi) then subiquity’s needs_bootloader_partition function will inaccurately return True, which in turn fails the install.

As soon as the second grub_device: true is added on the partition, autoinstall just proceeds, which is totally what dipo003’s GitHub links are showing right from the code

Here’s the relevant excerpt from my user-data file:

storage:
    swap:
      size: 0
    config:
      - id: sda
        type: disk
        ptable: gpt
        match:
          size: largest
        wipe: superblock-recursive
        preserve: false
        grub_device: true
      - id: sda1
        type: partition
        number: 1
        size: 1GB
        device: sda
        flag: boot
        # that shouldn't be here, but is needed for autoinstall to go through!
        grub_device: true
      - id: sda1-format
        type: format
        fstype: fat32
        volume: sda1
      - id: sda1-mount
        type: mount
        path: /boot/efi
        device: sda1-format

Or… did I miss something?

[mwhudson]

@clorichel

Working on some UEFI hardware, according to https://curtin.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topics/storage.html the grub_device is a key from the Disk command, and NOT a key from the Partition command.

Sigh, that’s not right, or at least that’s not the full story. When booting with UEFI, you can indicate an ESP that should be installed to by setting grub_device on the partition (see this code: curthooks.py « commands « curtin - curtin - [no description]). I guess you’re right that curtin is more lenient than subiquity here.

I also don’t think you need to set grub_device on the disk at all for UEFI boot but it’s also not harmful…

[clorichel]

@mwhudson

When booting with UEFI, you can indicate an ESP that should be installed to by setting grub_device on the partition (see this code: https://git.launchpad.net/curtin/tree/curtin/commands/curthooks.py#n632 ). I guess you’re right that curtin is more lenient than subiquity here.

I also don’t think you need to set grub_device on the disk at all for UEFI boot but it’s also not harmful…

Thanks for the insights!

Sounds like we should suggest an update to curtin documentation, shouldn’t we?

Won’t have the machine with me today, but later this week, and if that helps, I can try putting the grub_device key on the partition only and not the disk, to confirm that.

[mwhudson]

@clorichel

Sounds like we should suggest an update to curtin documentation, shouldn’t we?

Yes, probably. I actually wanted to clean this whole area up and make the config saner (for example, it really ought to be possible to install a system that will boot both legacy and UEFI) but it doesn’t look like I’m going to get around to that any time soon…

[SoulEvil]

At first i would say thank you with Auto install. It would help me lots for automation
But there are few confusing me. May i have some help please.

Here is my user-data file

#cloud-config

autoinstall:
version: 1
identity:
hostname: ubuntu
password: $6$
realname: SoulEvil
username: soulevil
ssh:
allow-pw: false
install-server: true
refresh-installer:
update: yes
channel: ‘stable’
update: yes
packages:
- zip
- unzip
- git
- curl
- wget
package_update: true
package_upgrade: true
user-data:
timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh
users:
- name: soulevil
gecos: Viet Vu
sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
ssh_authorized_keys:
- ssh-ed25519 jooservices@gmail.com:
runcmd:
- echo Autoinstall completed under soulevil
- wget htt p ://url/git.sh // enter wrong URL here for posting here purpose
- git config --global user.email “jooservices@gmail.com”
- git config --global user.name “Viet Vu”
- ssh-keygen -q -t ed25519 -N ‘’ -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 <</dev/null 2>&1

What did i do

• Generate user-data above
• Build ISO
• Create VirtualBox VM
• Add ISO and start it

What am i expecting

• I can fully execute my own script . For example:
  git config --global user.name “${name}”
  to init my git config
• And also generate SSH key
• And much more

What am i facing
Actually i can’t really handle user-data users block

• gecos: Try to use another realname by comparing with identity realname. But not works
• ssh_authorized_key ( for this user : soulevil ) also does not work. But ssh: authorized_keys work ???
• With above example wget be downloaded and stored under / instead /home/soulevil . So i guest running user at that time is root instead “soulevil”

Any guide really useful and thank you so much

For detail about my script
github .com/jooservices/ubuntu-autoinstall-virtualbox/blob/master/build.sh

[alowther]

If you have an identity section then the users section is not used. I have examples at https://askubuntu.com/a/1385096/376778

The commands in runcmd are run as root. These are run before the installation even begins. You might want to use late-commands (which also run as root). The users configured do not get created until the first boot after installation.

[SoulEvil]

Good morning @alowther
Thank you so much with your information.

I have tried below user-data file. But
I can’t login / or event SSH to server. Look like user/password can’t use

#cloud-config
autoinstall:
  version: 1
  refresh-installer:
    update: yes
    channel: 'stable'
  update: yes
  packages:
    - zip
    - unzip
    - git
    - curl
    - wget
  package_upgrade: yes
  user-data:
    hostname: ubuntu
    timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh
    users:
      - name: soulevil
        gecos: Viet Vu
        passwd: <encryptedpassword>
        sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
        ssh_authorized_keys:
          - <my-key>

[SoulEvil]

My bad. I have added lock_passwd: false for login ( with password )
For next step:

• Let me try with late-commands inside user section and see how it works.

Thank you

[stevew]

@mwhudson

and it would run myscript.sh interactively on tty1. But it might not work very well at all, as there will be other stuff running on tty1. Perhaps we need to design some kind of protocol for an early-command to ask for input.

Has anything been added to support user interaction in early-commands scripts?

@mwhudson

@noobient

If you designate a section as interactive, but also specify some answers for that section in the autoinstall file, there’s a conflict which autoinstall has to resolve. As of right now, autoinstall does that by simply ignoring any predefined answers for a section if it’s interactive.

FWIW, this isn’t the intent. The intent is that the autoinstall-provided values become defaults for the interactive screen. But I can well believe there are bugs around this.

Also, has any work been done on this? I’m trying to supply most but not all the values for a static network configuration using either user-data or the autoinstall.yaml file that’s been updated by my early-commands script. In either case, my supplied default values are ignored and I need to manually enter them if the network section is interactive. That seems to go against what is stated in the documentation:

Would stop on the network screen and allow the user to change the defaults. If a value is provided for an interactive section it is used as the default.

Thanks!

[markwien]

Hi there

i use 22.04 LTS and if i add those lines to my autoconfig it fails
after i login to shell i can see my shell script at /cdrom/nocloud/ubuntu_init.sh
i can execute shell script with success manuel.
my need is to execute my post install shell script from a local dir or remote server …

late-commands:
    - cp  /cdrom/nocloud/ubuntu_init.sh /target/ubuntu_init.sh
  user-data:
    timezone: Europe/Vienna
    runcmd:
    - bash /ubuntu_init.sh 
    disable_root: false

fail log

https://pastebin.com/vNNNdVfL

UPDATE 30.07.2022
its not my script. daily iso since 27th is failing with some apt-get error.

i was able to get it run with 22.04 LTS from 25.07.2022

cheers
mark

[jimangel]

I posted this on a similar thread that I found helpful, I hope to come across as helpful and not spammy (happy to remove if considered spam):

I spent a lot of time trying to untangle this topic and I think I was able to summarize all the moving parts in a single blog post . Thanks for everyone’s comments / feedback here, I hope this helps the next person who stumbles across this.

[akselpk]

I downloaded the latest iso from https://releases.ubuntu.com/22.10/ubuntu-22.10-desktop-amd64.iso

Modified the grub.cfg:

menuentry "Autoinstall" {
	set gfxpayload=keep
	linux	/casper/vmlinuz autoinstall ds=nocloud-net\;s=http://10.99.70.14/ ---
	initrd	/casper/initrd
}

During the loading of the operating system, attempts to download files are not recorded on the web server where the user-data and meta-data files are located.
After downloading live-os, I checked the availability of the files with the command “wget ​​http://10.99.70.14/user-data” and the file downloads fine.

But if I use a server iso image, the files are downloaded and the automatic installation starts

Why is the installer not trying to download files?

[jnlickey76]

Has anyone figured out how to resolve this issue? I think I’m seeing the same thing.

Also, has anyone figured out a way to repackage the Ubuntu installer ISO to contain the cloud config user-data and meta-data all on one ISO?

I can successfully get the auto-install to work with my user-data and meta-data files as long as they are on a separate ‘cidata’ ISO loaded in a 2nd CD/DVD drive. I would like to get a way to boot from a single ISO and have it auto-install.

I’ve been trying to use the following websites to help in this effort.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/how-to-make-ubuntu-autoinstall-iso-with-cloud-init-2213/

https://gist.github.com/s3rj1k/55b10cd20f31542046018fcce32f103e

[itjamie]

Ubuntu 22.04 autoinstall. i cannot seem to stop swap.img from getting configured.

Ive tried the following but the swap imagefile is still created even though ive made a swap partition as part of the config block

  storage:
    swap: 
      swap: 0
   config: {redacted}

[alowther]

Your second swap should be size. Another possible gotcha is that the swap section will be ignored if you use a layout section.

#cloud-config
autoinstall:
  storage:
    swap:
      size: 0
    config: ...

[mxcody]

I have figured it out. https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man7/dracut.cmdline.7.html

There is an option called rd.noverifyssl and the only way I was able to get it to work was with the URL of the server not the IP address.

linux /casper/vmlinuz quiet autoinstall rd.noverifyssl “ds=nocloud-net;s=https://url.com/ubuntu/” —

My user-data and meta-data file are in the folder ubuntu. Hope this helps!

[chad.smith]

One bump that has hit me a couple of times with providing menu entries to grub is that grub’s “shell” actually interpret’s the semicolon ‘;’ as the end of line and therfore truncates the trailing s=http://10.99.70...../ content. I’ve found in my case when editing the grub config live in the menu I have had to single-quote the 'ds=nocloud-net;s=http://YOUR_IP/'

To validate whether you’ve hit this symptom and grub shell truncated your commandline params you can run: cat /proc/cmdline and hopefully you’ll see the full ds=nocloud-net;s=http://YOUR_IP/ instead of just ds=nocloud-net.

As cloud-init is ultimately the service trying to download your user-data files, one can also check whether your autoinstall user-data was presented to your booted machine:
sudo cloud-init query userdata

If the response is empty, cloud-init never saw your kernel cmdline config.

Doc reference for quoting when playing wiith setings/config in grub menu land

[muncjack]

Hello,

I am having some fustration with the setup of some servers with ubuntu 20, the server do not have dhcp so I need a static IP.

So I have create a iso with a basic cloudinit config with a early-command which run a script that scan all the network cards macaddress and find the relavent cloudinit file and copies it to /autoinstall.yaml but the network config fail.

I have tried using the early command to configure the netplan but subquity breaks it all (not fun).

The same config on ubuntu 22 works fine.

[athos-ribeiro]

Hi,

Could you provide additional information, such as logs, the configuration being used, and the error you are seeing? If possible, a reproducer could also help figuring out what is going on here.