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. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.
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