On Sun, 2018-08-12 at 00:25 +1200, Richard Hector wrote: > On 12/08/18 00:16, Ben Hutchings wrote: > > On Sat, 2018-08-11 at 22:58 +1200, Richard Hector wrote: > > [...] > > > I'm mostly familiar with the netinst image, and it's what I generally > > > use to install on real hardware. > > > > > > I'm less familiar with netboot, but have used it for PXE installs (right?) > > > > > > What I'm missing is how I can use either of them on a remote KVM VPS, > > > where I get to see the boot process on some kind of remote console, and > > > I have the opportunity to provide a bootable ISO, but not much else. > > > > > > I've tried providing the netinst ISO, and it boots but can't find itself > > > for installing packages. > > > > OK, so you're only providing the netinst ISO? Somehow I got the > > impression that you were providing a separate initramfs. Sorry for the > > irrelevant answer. > > > > > Is that a matter of the appropriate storage drivers not being included, > > > or is it the way the VPS provider set up the virtual CD? > > > > It's both! libvirt can provide (through QEMU) an emulated CD drive > > attached to an Intel PATA controller, Intel SATA controller, LSI Logic > > SCSI controller or virtio SCSI controller. I've just verified that the > > installer works for all of the first three options, but not virtio. > > > > If there's an option to configure the CD drive to be attached through > > one of the other controllers, you should choose that. But we should > > also add virtio drivers to the standard installer initramfs. > > Great, thanks heaps for all that effort. > > I don't think there's (currently) a way to attach it differently (though > I could request that, and they well might do it - which might help > people who want to install other distros too). > > But in the meantime, can I tell the installer to download a different > initramfs which will work? Or does one of the other installer ISOs (ie > not the netinst ones) come with a suitable initramfs?
I can see two options: - Rebuild the standard installer with virtio-modules included, and then rebuild the netinst ISO image - Build an ISO image from the netboot installer But neither of those are easy unless you're already familiar with the process. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.
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