2017-12-12 - Progress - Tony Finch
Goal: install a Debian VM from scratch, without interaction, and with a minimum of external dependencies (no PXE etc.) by putting a preseed file on the install media.
Sadly the documentation for how to do this is utterly appalling, so here's a rant.
Starting point
The Debian installer documentation, appendix B.
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/apbs02.html.en
Some relevant quotes:
Putting it in the correct location is fairly straightforward for network preseeding or if you want to read the file off a floppy or usb-stick. If you want to include the file on a CD or DVD, you will have to remaster the ISO image. How to get the preconfiguration file included in the initrd is outside the scope of this document; please consult the developers' documentation for debian-installer.
Note there is no link to the developers' documentation.
If you are using initrd preseeding, you only have to make sure a file named preseed.cfg is included in the root directory of the initrd. The installer will automatically check if this file is present and load it.
For the other preseeding methods you need to tell the installer what file to use when you boot it. This is normally done by passing the kernel a boot parameter, either manually at boot time or by editing the bootloader configuration file (e.g.
syslinux.cfg) and adding the parameter to the end of the append line(s) for the kernel.
Note that we'll need to change the installer boot process in any case, in order to skip the interactive boot menu. But these quotes suggest that we'll have to remaster the ISO, to edit the boot parameters and maybe alter the initrd.
So we need to guess where else to find out how to do this.
Wiki spelunking
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller
This suggests we should follow https://wiki.debian.org/DebianCustomCD
or use simple-cdd.
simple-cdd
I tried simple-cdd but it failed messily.
It needs parameters to select the correct version (it defaults to Jessie) and a local mirror (MUCH faster).
$ time simple-cdd --dist stretch \
--debian-mirror http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian
[...]
ERROR: missing required packages from profile default: less
ERROR: missing required packages from profile default: simple-cdd-profiles
WARNING: missing optional packages from profile default: grub-pc grub-efi popularity-contest console-tools console-setup usbutils acpi acpid eject lvm2 mdadm cryptsetup reiserfsprogs jfsutils xfsprogs debootstrap busybox syslinux-common syslinux isolinux
real 1m1.528s
user 0m34.748s
sys 0m1.900s
Sigh, looks like we'll have to do it the hard way.
Modifying the ISO image
Eventually I realise the hard version of making a CD image without
simple-cdd is mostly about custom package selections, which is not
something I need.
This article is a bit more helpful...
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed
It contains a link to...
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed/EditIso
That requires root privilege and is a fair amount of faff.
That page in turn links to...
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Modify
And then...
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Modify/CD
This has a much easier way of unpacking the ISO using bsdtar, and
instructions on rebuilding a hybrid USB/CD ISO using xorriso. Nice.
Most of the rest of the page is about changing package selections which we already determined we don't need.
Boot configuration
OK, so we have used bsdtar to unpack the ISO, and we can see various
boot-related files. We need to find the right ones to eliminate the
boot menu and add the preseed arguments.
There is no syslinux.cfg in the ISO so the D-I documentation's
example is distressingly unhelpful.
I first tried editing boot/grub/grub.cfg but that had no effect.
There are two boot mechanisms on the ISO, one for USB and one for
CD/DVD. The latter is in isolinux/isolinux.cfg.
Both must be edited (in similar but not identical ways) to get the effect I want regardless of the way the VM boots off the ISO.
Unpacking and rebuilding the ISO takes less than 3 seconds on my workstation, which is acceptably fast.