On 12/08/18 01:37, Ben Hutchings wrote: > 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. Thanks Ben. After a bit more research, I figured the stretch 'mini.iso' from the netboot tree might do the job, since it downloads everything and doesn't need to read the CD after boot. That did appear to work - but the resulting system unfortunately didn't boot. I suspect that has more to do with the way the VPS is set up, though - I don't think the grub that's trying to boot it is the same one that I installed, and it got confused, giving me an Error 14, something to do with a file too big to read. Grub legacy trying to read grub2 stuff perhaps? Anyway, probably off-topic here. Thanks, Richard
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