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Re: time to clarify my (mis)understanding of ubuntu autoinstall.yaml

  • Subject: Re: time to clarify my (mis)understanding of ubuntu autoinstall.yaml
  • From: Allan Fields <afields [ at ] ncf [ dot ] ca>
  • Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:44:11 -0400 (EDT)
Yes, its possible.

Is the question essentially: How-To avoid re-creating the image, yet still have flexible autoinstall.yaml at boot-time?


1.  Autoinstall configuration reference manual - Ubuntu installation documentation: https://canonical-subiquity.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/autoinstall-reference.html#early-commands

 autoinstall:

   # Pause the install just before starting to allow manual inspection/modification of the live system.

   # Unpause by creating the /run/finish-early" file.

   early-commands:
     - while [ ! -f /run/finish-early ]; do sleep 1; done

  

 autoinstall:
   # Replace the current autoinstall configuration with one provided by a trusted server

    early-commands:
      - wget -O /autoinstall.yaml $TRUSTED_SERVER_URL



Supplying files during install w/o network, but by using an addendum “install driver update disk”.

 

2. How to Set Boot Parameters for the Different Linux Distributions : 
https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1703.pdf
 

Common parameters

This section introduces some common but ambiguous parameters and debug settings of GRUB2.

The following is the list of common parameters about different distributions.

 

Driver update parameters:

 

RHEL:

inst.dd=hd:LABEL=DISK_LABEL:/DRIVER.rpm

inst.dd=http://IP/PATH/DRIVER.rpm

 

SLES:

dud=disk:/DRIVER.dud

dud=http://IP/PATH/DRIVER.dud insecure=1

 

Ubuntu:

debian-installer/driver-update=


Could these option help?

- Allan
----- Original Message -----
From: Jean-Francois Messier via linux <linux [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org>
To: linux [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org
Sent: Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:18:23 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [linux] time to clarify my (mis)understanding of ubuntu autoinstall.yaml

Not sure whether this would work with Ubuntu, but for Red Hat, you could
mount a separate ISO file as a secondary CDROM, or a Floppy image
containing the autoinst.yaml and it would install it as per this YAML file.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

As for not re-creating a whole new ISO file, I think Robert is right.
Unless, of course you have new packages you also need to be added to the
ISO.

JFM

On Tue, Aug 19, 2025 at 9:31 AM Robert P. J. Day via linux <
linux [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org> wrote:

>
>   based on my perusal of a number of alleged tutorials related to how
> to configure auto-installation of ubuntu {desktop,server} 24.04+, here
> is what seems to be the most straightforward overview:
>
>
> https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-repackage-an-ubuntu-iso-image-for-autoinstall-using-yaml
>
> i'm about to give that a test run, but it would be just ducky if
> someone who's done this before can confirm that, since ubuntu
> 24.04(?), all that is necessary is to grab a standard ubuntu ISO, open
> it up, copy your autoinstall.yaml file into the root directory of the
> ISO, then pack it up again using "xorriso" or something similar.
>
>   i ask since other tutorials suggested you needed to rebuild grub.cfg
> and other files in the ISO, but the tutorial above clearly implies
> that all you need to do is add that autoinstall.yaml file, and the
> installer will use that if it exists, and you don't need to do any
> further configuration.
>
>   does that sound about right?
>
> rday
>
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