iankelling.org Git - automated-distro-installer/blob - README

   1 PXE install w multi-boot, btrfs & Libreboot support
   2
   3 Some things are specific to my home network, and uses files with secrets
   4 that are not in this repo. I use this for bare metal and vms, and two
   5 scripts which can run post boot so I use them on vps distributed image
   6 as well.
   7
   8 Features people may find useful: installs encrypted trisquel, debian,
   9 ubuntu, and arch (havne't done recently, probably a bit broken), in a
  10 multi-boot setup using multiple subvolumes of a single btrfs filesystem.
  11 Utilizes multiple disks, with scripts to automatically decrypt on
  12 intentional reboots, but not after shutdown or power loss.
  13
  14 Normal install mode for fai is using pxe, but on a libreboot system,
  15 there is no pxe. The pxe in a normal computer is nonfree
  16 firmware. Alternatives to normal pxe that I've tried:
  17
  18 * libreboot + seabios + ipxe
  19
  20 * Use a live cd to call pxe-kexec, this is described later in this file.
  21
  22 * Use the fai autodiscover iso. This is more automated, so nicer.
  23
  24 * Use an install method above to setup a gnu/linux disk partition that
  25   coordinates with libreboot grub to acts like a pxe boot using
  26   kexec. The boot process takes a bit longer than normal pxe. This is
  27   the bootstrap partition in my scripts.
  28
  29 Things I haven't tried:
  30
  31 * The bios chip has enough room for an initrd. This could be setup to
  32   work like the partition I use to kexec, but it would be faster, and
  33   not require installing to disk.
  34
  35 The partititioning and filesystem script is at
  36 fai/config/hooks/partition.DEFAULT. Disks are grouped as ssd or hdd and
  37 raided in raid 1 or raid 0 per configuration. The base partitions are
  38 divided into boot, swap, and root, (only boot is unencrypted). There are
  39 scripts to resize those partitions post-provision and while the system
  40 is running.
  41
  42 People who use fai may find these things as useful examples: it uses
  43 dnsmasq (on a openwrt machine) for dhcp instead of the isc
  44 dhcp. fai-wrapper is a small script to use basic fai classes outside of
  45 fai. It does not use the fai partitioning tool, but the script is
  46 inspired from it and works outside of fai. It supports running a fai
  47 server on debian within android via Maru.
  48
  49 It also automates configuration of an openwrt router after manual
  50 initial installation.
  51
  52 After provisionining is done, I sync files using btrfs, or unison for
  53 vps, then automate further setup using a different set of scripts,
  54 https://iankelling.org/git/?p=distro-setup;a=tree.
  55
  56 My network is a wndr3700v2 router with openwrt on it and a few pcs/laptops.
  57
  58 Since fai requires a debian server as the fai server, there are also
  59 scripts to automate a debian install using pxe and preseeding, which can
  60 be done from any distro.
  61
  62 Some of the scripts have dependencies for some simple obvious utility
  63 scripts from https://iankelling.org/git, and of course there are some
  64 hostnames that are specific to my network.
  65
  66
  67
  68 All scripts meant to be used directly are listed here:
  69
  70
  71 # Scripts to setup the environment for the install
  72
  73 sudo fai-cd -g grub.cfg.autodiscover -f -A $BASEFILE_DIR/autodiscover.iso # create autodiscover cd
  74 mymk-basefile # Create basefiles for various distros
  75 arch-pxe # Setup arch pxe boot server from an arch base image
  76 fai-redep # Deploy fai configuration to host "faiserver"
  77 faiserver-uninstall # uninstall fai-server
  78 faiserver-setup # install fai-server on the current machine
  79 myfai-chboot # setup fai tftp and nfs. useful for doing pxe-kexec
  80 pxe-server # disable/enable pxe dhcp, tfp, and nfs. calls myfai-chboot
  81 wrt-setup  # setup my router in general: dhcp, dns, etc.
  82
  83
  84 # Script to do a distro install
  85
  86 faiserver-revm # using pxe & preseed, create a vm which is a fai server
  87 dsfull # install & post-install a new fai distro
  88 arch-init-remote # install arch after it's been booted into it's setup env
  89 fai-kexec # Kexec this or a remote machine using host faiserver
  90 live-kexec # fai kexec from upstream live cds, e.g. curl live-kexec|bash
  91
  92
  93 # Test scripts
  94
  95 arch-revm # test arch install on a fresh vm
  96 fai-revm  # test fai install on a fresh vm
  97
  98
  99 # Scripts to call after a distro install for various reasons
 100
 101 chboot # Set grub to boot into a different distro (installed earlier)
 102 install-chboot # reinstall chboot to /boot subvols, for chboot updates.
 103 eboot # reboot without automatic disk decryption
 104 fai-wrapper # use fai classes outside of fai. sourced, not called.
 105 faiserver-disable # Disable the fai nfs server exports
 106 fresize # resize swap or boot partitions in a host
 107
 108
 109 # Replacing a raid 10 disk
 110
 111 pxe-server -S HOST fai
 112 ssh root@HOST
 113 cat >p
 114 PASSWORD HERE(ctrl-d ctrl-d)
 115 for d in /dev/disk/by-id/ata*part1; do cryptsetup luksOpen --key-file p $d crypt_dev_${d##*/}; done
 116 # btrfs replace disk # i forget the actual command
 117 x=(/dev/mapper/*part1); mount -o subvol=root_trisquelflidas $x /mnt
 118 mount -o subvol=boot_trisquelflidas /dev/sda3 /mnt/boot
 119 for x in dev proc sys; do mount -o bind /$x /mnt/$x; done
 120 chroot /mnt /bin/bash
 121 # replace disk in fstab
 122 # replace disk in /etc/crypttab
 123 update-grub
 124 update-initramfs -u
 125 mount /a
 126 /a/exe/keyscript-on
 127 exit
 128 reboot
 129
 130
 131 # Expected output in fai logs
 132
 133 For flidas, when installing systemd, this error happens, and it's
 134 a superflous upstream bug based on reading the post install script:
 135
 136 addgroup: The group `systemd-journal' already exists as a system group. Exiting.
 137 Operation failed: No such file or directory
 138
 139
 140
 141 # License
 142
 143 The license for the project is GPLv2 or later, mostly because fai is and
 144 I periodically merge the upstream example config, which contains small
 145 scripts. Also, there is a modified encrypt.upstream, which is from the
 146 cryptsetup package in arch, which is under the same license.