Add Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

[vrillusions]

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS has been released. Some observations thus far:

• There's no alternate installer. Only option is the live cd, even for netboot
• On the bright side they've documented how to setup a netboot image. Which is useful for #3
• There's a new way of handling automated installs using cloud-config format. Under "Future directions" it mentions they could add kickstart support. Which means right now it isn't in there.
• They also have a quick start using the new install config

Likely this is going to involve scrapping the use of kickstart format files and using the newer format. Which doesn't look too difficult. So I'm thinking

• minimal_vm - as small an install I can get for vms
• physical - a larger install to use on physical hardware... which may not be needed and can instead just say "if it's a physical server remember to add these other packages to it since it's hard to make a template and deal with multiple numbers of drives and if you want software raid and such.
• give instructions on how to setup netboot

[kfiresmith]

I actually tried to shoot you an email yesterday but your contact-me on your website wasn't working. I wanted to thank you for your efforts with this project and let you know it's being put to good use for LVM builds at a scientific facility in the Cape Cod area.

I haven't had a chance to look at 20.04 yet but I'm really hoping we can get an unattended build together that puts /boot on /sda1 and everything else on LVM.

[vrillusions]

Heh thanks for reminding me about that. Forgot they removed the old version of recaptcha I was using and haven't gotten around to updating it.

If anything it looks like it will be even easier with the new config format since you can do things like matching on serial number or if it's an SSD.

[kfiresmith]

Hi again, Got a chance to read the 20.04 wiki entries you made - thanks very much for that.

I hate to ask, but I was hoping you might be able to help me better understand how to use the new build system to achieve something approaching parity with kickstart when it comes to static networking information.

Our build method - and I'm guessing the build method for many more traditional places - is to use a single generalized kickstart file hosted on a web server (eg: ks=https://build.college.edu/ubuntu-1804-base.ks) coupled with kernel boot args for hostname/domain and static network information as we don't have PXE nor DHCP. After reading through your wiki pages, and the upstream docs, I'm still not quite grokking how to do the same for Ubuntu 20.04.

Thanks a bunch for maintaining the "missing manual" to Ubuntu automated builds!

[vrillusions]

Actually one of my TODO's is to just pull the 18.04 ks file. While poking around I saw that there were still some preseed files on boot media and while they recommend using the new system and the old kickstart method is deprecated it may still work. I have a hunch that would work though so if you really want to get up and going with deploying 20.04 (I usually try to have the auto install stuff working when they issue a x.y.1 version sometime later in the year) they you could try exactly what you used before and it may work. Other than possibly tweaking some things in kickstart like packages may have been renamed or removed

[vrillusions]

So I've been looking in to this still. What's been eating my time away is how much stuff gets installed by default. Apparently this is just how it works now. Specifically all that stuff is coming from ubuntu-server metapackage. I was able to clear up some space in the past by not installing recommended packages. The cloud-config file supports adding custom apt config options and I can disable recommends there... except during the install it recommends grub is installed and doesn't require it. Then it gets to grub install step and goes "no grub here" and fails. I plan on getting something up this weekend even if it basically what is already being done by autoinstaller.

[vrillusions]

So just posted this little juicy tidbit to wiki page I figured I'd copy here:

Looking at release notes on 20.04.1 and saw mention of http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-legacy-server/releases/20.04/release/ which peaked my interest. Turns out that's what they call the alternate install image now. That ISO does support kickstart files. Even better I was able to use my 18.04 kickstart with zero modifications and it worked. And since that can turn off the install recommends option it brings package list down from 568 using new installer to 352 with legacy server image. Interestingly it doesn't install snapd so I guess it's not a requirement.

So I may look at tweaking the kickstart config and just get that up, point people to get the 'legacy' image and it all works. Although I've still been meaning to tweak the sizes of default install. I always end up having to expand /usr but still this is some exciting news.

[kfiresmith]

Thanks man! I'm going to try to make some time to also test this out for work.

[vrillusions]

Since last update there has been a lot more information available online. Including Ubuntu's own documentation is much better now. Prepping for 22.04 I may give it another go to see if I can install a minimal vm without snap or any other non-essential things. I've done inplace upgrades of a couple servers. One autoinstalled snapd and another didn't. But I removed it from the one that did and it still runs fine. Perhaps the wwhole grub issue I was having before is fixed now? Just wanted to update this with some links as many people have gotten this to work now albeit the resultant images are larger than I'd like.