[Abdullah]

can any one reupload the scrpit

[JakeMS]

Kindof wrong way to do it, "almost-clean" is speak for bad. Nevermind the fact that with KVM/IP as standard on many models you can just use iso to install without much if any issue as of at least a year ago.

In addition, you should have an RHEL license to do that (technically).

Plus, OVH now offers standard/vanilla/native OS install options for:

CentOS 6.4 and Debian 7.0

J.

Fair enough.

Being new to OVH I was unaware of that, and when I set up my servers there was no vanilla kernel option as C6.4 released same day so OVH had not yet added the option for it. (naturally)

[glidewave]

Kindof wrong way to do it, "almost-clean" is speak for bad. Nevermind the fact that with KVM/IP as standard on many models you can just use iso to install without much if any issue as of at least a year ago.

In addition, you should have an RHEL license to do that (technically).

Plus, OVH now offers standard/vanilla/native OS install options for:

CentOS 6.4 and Debian 7.0

J.

[JakeMS]

I found the easiest method for getting a CentOS6 clean was to do the following:

1. Reinstall server as RHEL6.
2. Use migration methods to convert it to CentOS6

This gives you an almost-clean syteam of CentOS as the RHEL install is almost stock minus a few configuration files which you can change later on :-).

[bagpuss]

Just to say, I have just used this method, with the appropriate adjustments to do a clean install of CentOS 6.3 on my SP 32G SSD server and it worked like a charm.

Thanks to the author

Since I've not seen Iain on IM since last year (and his domain/blog isn't coming up) and I know that many are looking to do a real stock inst................................
................................
Edit 2: This works on an sp-storage 2011 as well, however does not work on the mg 10gbps 2011 line. You can substitute Fedora images as well and it does work.

[IainK]

Sorry for the utter lack of updates guys (and girls). Works been mad busy and I no longer have spare OVH servers to play with so development has been grinding to a halt.

What I do have here are a lot of rack mount servers with not a lot to do so I am going to take some time today to attempt to polish up this kickstart system.

So far the process is:
Run a pre-install script on your server. The script will determine the IP Address, Netmask, Gateway, Number of hard disks, the HDD size and will get a list of current hardware in the box comparing that to network and disk controllers supported by stock CentOS installer.

Assuming the pre-install script finds everything, everything should be ok and it will proceed to submit this information to my server (using ssl of course). You will be given a URL to visit in your browser and configure the aspects of installation along with a one time password.

After configuring the kickstart installation using nothing more than a website and a similar installation process to OVH's (with a bit more choice) you are then presented with a command to download and start the installation on your server.

The goal: kickstart installs that work every time and on any server provider. It should support CentOS 5.6 and 6.0.

[yonatan]

why not just install centos from the manager and replace the OVH kernel with stock centos kernel?
much faster...

[TH-Guy]

Sounds great - any update on this Iain?

[IainK]

I'm working on a solution for many boxes at the moment. It will be a lot better than this. Very busy with real life and work though so can't give an exact ETA.

I can confirm that I have figured out a way to install stock CentOS on the 4 HDD servers and sort out boot loader + config for raid afterwards, testing as bash script now and will be made available soon. Requires 3 steps. First fire up the script on box, then run vnc install, then switch to rescue mode to fix bootloader. Trying to make it a bit tidier so it will automate this on kickstart, though.

The kickstart version is getting a complete overhaul and full web ui to enable you to build your own install for it.

No ETA's but I will be updating the first post soon. Maybe a week. Maybe few days.

=== Update [May 25th 2011 @ 00:09] ===
Bash script is nearly working. Currently testing with SP Storage 2010. Able to launch VNC installer and it finishes successfully. Box left in state unable to boot. Doing extensive testing of the procedure to fix boot loader/raid config after install. Once I am satisfied that everything is going a-ok each and every time I will proceed to test on a couple of EG 2010 series boxes, and then finally post the scripts here.

If anyone has any spare boxes that I may use to test the installation, and post up a supported servers list, then please drop me an e-mail to spam [at] iainkay [dot] com.

It would/will require erasing the entire HDD multiple times! So please, only new/spare boxes.

Easy kickstart setup/installer is still on the cards for the future.

[Coldcutt]

Is there no other solution to this with IainK's file no longer accessible?

[glidewave]

Didn't say it did But I'll be testing on the AMD 10 shortly.

[raxxeh]

Doesn't work on dual physical cpu machines. :P

[glidewave]

Since I've not seen Iain on IM since last year (and his domain/blog isn't coming up) and I know that many are looking to do a real stock install (like we all want to) using VNC, I've gathered this up which actually has worked for me on a kimi C-05G and an SP-Storage (09) which I've redone more than 2 times to try different things. I'll be testing on one of my AMD-10R's soon as well because of the inept lack of 2+TB drive support from OVH installs.

First, you must be using grub... best to do a clean ovh install of centos 5.5 first since grub seems to now be the standard manager centos installs (tfft).

Next login as root and get the images (you can change to the x86_64 if your system supports it by changing the i386 to x86_64):

wget http://mirror.ovh.net/ftp.centos.org/5/os/i386/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz
wget http://mirror.ovh.net/ftp.centos.org/5/os/i386/images/pxeboot/initrd.img

and then copy those to the /boot directory as such (from the dir where you wget'd from):

cp vmlinuz /boot/vmlinuz.centos.pxe
cp initrd.img /boot/initrd.img.centos.pxe

Next: (note that for x86_64, change the method url from i386 to x86_64 | and you will need the gateway/route information from your eth0)
Edit /boot/grub/grub.conf and replace contents with (note I use opendns for simplicity) and save (with pico/nano/vi):

default 0
timeout 5
title Centos VNC Installation
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz.centos.pxe vnc vncpassword=whateverpassword headless ip=yourovhserverip netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=yourovhservergateway dns=208.67.222.222 ksdevice=eth0 method=http://mirror.ovh.net/ftp.centos.org/5/os/i386/ lang=en_US keymap=us
initrd /boot/initrd.img.centos.pxe

Now cross your fingers and type reboot on your server and start a ping, once it comes back up (if it does not come back up- your network settings in grub may be off or the centos default doesn't recognize the interface), open your favorite VNC application real/ultra viewer and put in host: yourovhserverip:1 and then then password you put in the grub.conf

You should get this glorious thing (glorious considering the ovh non-modules non-standard garbage option):



You should then be able to go through a complete CentOS clean install... IMPORTANT: Make sure you set the networking correctly, otherwise on reboot it will fail and you will need to do another OVH Install.

Edit 2: This works on an sp-storage 2011 as well, however does not work on the mg 10gbps 2011 line. You can substitute Fedora images as well and it does work.

[RichardWnl]

Why not do it manually? And even if you are lazy you can create a simple shell script for executing most of the commands.

[raxxeh]

Has anyone been able to get hold of him? I can't add him to my msn for some reason....

[RapidSpeeds]

@adrovek: add me to MSN or AIM at iainkay[at]me[dot]com

You will have much more chance (as well as faster) adding him to MSN/AIM

[HandsomeChap]

Doh just tried to use this and its offline, iain not been on the forum in 4 months, has anyone taken a copy of the kickstart file they can send me?

[iUnknown]

http://development.iainkay.co.uk/scr...54&arch=x86_64

You don't really need the source

Had discovered this, but would be nice to have the PHP released as well (to save that little more effort).

There is loads of information telling you just the few more lines you need to add to this file to configure your software RAID here:

http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/In...2-options.html



Use your browser to search for the term 'raid' on the page and flick through each reference.

[Razakel]

Can you release the sourcecode of the kickstart.php file and I will patch it to work with software RAID?

http://development.iainkay.co.uk/scr...54&arch=x86_64

You don't really need the source

[iUnknown]

If you are reading this then for whatever reason you are unhappy with the OVH customised CentOS 5 distribution and would like to install a clean stock distribution with stock kernel.

In the past other OVH forums members have come up with ways of installing CentOS remotely on your OVH server using VNC. However this method is much easier. You don't have to edit configuration files and don't have to manually run the installer. All you need to do is copy and paste one command.
Interested?

Before performing these steps ensure that you are running either CentOS or a Debian based distribution that supports apt-get.


If you are installing on a 64-bit compatible server, which almost all of OVH's 2009/2010 range servers are, then use the following command:

wget http://development.iainkay.co.uk/scripts/linux/kInstall/install.sh && sh install.sh

If you are installing on a 32-bit only server, such as the Kimsufi Celeron 1.2GHz, then use the following command instead:

wget http://development.iainkay.co.uk/scripts/linux/kInstall/install.sh && sh install.sh -32

Once the script has completed and your server is rebooting the only thing you can do is start pinging it and watch. You should notice that at first the pings are being lost, then when the installation starts the server should start responding to pings. After the installation completes the server will drop pings again. When it starts responding again you can login via SSH with username root and the password 'changemoi'.

At this point you should type 'passwd' and change the root password immediately.

TESTED ON:
Kimsufi C-05G - 32BIT - Works
Kimsufi Q-1T - 64BIT - Works
Kimsufi 3XL - 64BIT - Doesn't work, problems with network card
Kimsufi i7-2T - 64BIT - One user has reported a problem with password after install
Kimsufi i7-4T (with 3ware HW raid10) - 64BIT - Works
Any Soft Raid - does not setup disks/boot correctly. [fix soon]

NOTE: On older OVH servers you may have more success using VNC method, or may have issues with drivers preventing the installation of a stock CentOS.

How does it work?
I wrote a simple bash script to download the required PXE boot kernel and initrd image to /boot on your server as well as configure and install grub.
Instead of using VNC the installer is setup and told what to do by way of a kickstart file. The kickstart file is made with PHP so that the bash script can pass various information about your server including IP address and gateway via variables.

Hopefully this should help at least some people who wish to use stock CentOS kernel or just want a nice clean installation. Let me know how it goes!

Can you release the sourcecode of the kickstart.php file and I will patch it to work with software RAID?

[iUnknown]

Ian does your script support servers with soft raid yet? Says fix coming soon on the first post, not sure if thats still relevant or not?

+1 for this. If you could fix this I imagine it would be excellent to use.

[HandsomeChap]

Ian does your script support servers with soft raid yet? Says fix coming soon on the first post, not sure if thats still relevant or not?

[freshwire]

It may be trivial to you, but it's time off my bottom line for every single server I need to set up / reinstall.

Then why not keep the precompiled versions for each architecture? Or do you mean when new versions come along?

[stugster]

I got Iain to do my stock install. Was done within an hour. £20 well spent.

[IainK]

Worked fine on my Q1-T, infact that's the server I used to develop the most recent version of this script.

However upon inspection my Ethernet adaptor is:
Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566DC Gigabit Network Connection (rev 02)

When you say didn't come back up do you mean it never came back up at all or it came back up then went down and never came back up?

[Razakel]

Just tried this with a Q-1T, didn't come back up after 30 minutes.

Network card is "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller", any ideas?

[IainK]

I have contacted support in regards to getting a list of NIC & SATA/PATA controllers used in all of the 09/10 range servers and hopefully all the older lines too.
Now assuming I hear back from them I'm going to make my own pxeimage that will boot on all OVH servers and will have a way to install the drivers for your hardware.

After that I will add proper partitioning setup.

[stugster]

Administration of your server is just part of... having an unmanaged dedicated server I suppose.

Thing is... unessesary administration of a server really puts me off.

If you know you want to use a different kernel you just set it up and use it. If you know you want to use a different webserver than is available in Release 2 for instance, you install it, etc. not sure what else you would expect from unmanaged dedicated servers other than the power to configure and install as you wish being in your hands.

I could understand your argument for this if what I was asking for was even the slightest out of the ordinary. All I'm asking for is a standard install of CentOS!

As a potential (scratch that: probably not a) customer, I would have expected OVH's support to assist me in either:

1) Providing me an image of a CentOS install that I can boot the machine from that doesn't include the silly OVH Kernel...
2) Fix access to the virtual KVM system so that I can, as you say "do it myself".

I think what you and perhaps OVH themselves are forgetting here is that for me to reinstall the kernel manually, that costs. So not only would I have the usual time for installing cPanel, etc. I now have an additional 30/60/>60 minutes per server to get the machine to its most basic CentOS installation state!?

Be good if you could feed this back to your superiors and see if something can be done.

Is it just me that thinks this is all stupid?

[fozl]

More worrying statements from OVH

Why's that worrying?

It may be trivial to you, but it's time off my bottom line for every single server I need to set up / reinstall.

Administration of your server is just part of... having an unmanaged dedicated server I suppose. If you know you want to use a different kernel you just set it up and use it. If you know you want to use a different webserver than is available in Release 2 for instance, you install it, etc. not sure what else you would expect from unmanaged dedicated servers other than the power to configure and install as you wish being in your hands.

[stugster]

But it's trivial to compile and use what kernel you preffer.

It may be trivial to you, but it's time off my bottom line for every single server I need to set up / reinstall.

For that reason alone, I'm out.

[stugster]

The ovh static kernel is for security reasons,

More worrying statements from OVH

[fozl]

Well, it is a basic installation of centos (or what have you) as is available from centos website, except with some additional tools thrown in (screen, tcpdump, mdadm and the like) plus rtm.

The ovh static kernel is for security reasons, and so that we can offer the exact 100% same kernels via Netboot. But it's trivial to compile and use what kernel you preffer. We make the images available here: ftp://ftp.ovh.net/made-in-ovh/bzImage/

[Ashley]

I agree.

Custom builds make it more confusing.

"Basic distros" should be basic distros, not OVH's own version.

[stugster]

Rubbish. A stock build of CentOS is simple. Creating custom builds with their own silly kernel isn't.

But fair enough. If that's how they operate

[Myatu]

Why does OVH not just offer a standard CentOS build from their Reinstall area? Seems madness to me!

Quoting the boss himself, this is why:

KISS = Keep It Simple and Stupid

[stugster]

I've only just now found this thread as a result of spending around 2 business days trying to get OVH's vKVM to work and install a stock-build of CentOS.

Why does OVH not just offer a standard CentOS build from their Reinstall area? Seems madness to me!


P.S. Well done to Iain for trying... although to be fair, OVH should be better prepared for what their customers actually want, not what they THINK they want.

[Ben - PHP Works]

Hi,

Just wanted to report back on this - unfortunately it never seemed to work for us (the server just never came back up after using this - we could not even ping the server, and we tried this multiple times) - we left it overnight at one point too and OVH ended up rebooting the server in Rescue Mode.

In the end we just compiled the latest kernel based off OVH's .config and enabled everything we needed (including modules support, etc.) and that seems to work fine.

This was on a Kimsufi i7-2T, however one of the hard drives may have been faulty on the server since we got it - so perhaps that was something to do with it?

Thanks,
Ben

[Ashley]

I'm always online, but normaly ignore these kind of requests where I don't know the user adding me. AFAIK there is a box to put in comment while adding someone.
Or let me know the username, then I can accept it.

ashley@getdarker.co.uk

I added you on AIM too where you don't need to confirm my request

[derchris]

I'm always online, but normaly ignore these kind of requests where I don't know the user adding me. AFAIK there is a box to put in comment while adding someone.
Or let me know the username, then I can accept it.

[Ashley]

Debian's way to do this is preseeding.
But my Debian remote install should also work with Ubuntu, with some minor changes.
But I couldn't test it, lack of a spare system

I added you on AIM/MSN so I could test it but you're never online?

[derchris]

Debian's way to do this is preseeding.
But my Debian remote install should also work with Ubuntu, with some minor changes.
But I couldn't test it, lack of a spare system

[egghead0]

Thanks Iain - guessing this would be preseeding?

That's what I was researching before I came across this post anyways.

I will give it a go unless someone tells me it isnt preseeding and report back

[IainK]

This will install the correct files to boot Ubuntu net installer, at least by the looks of things, however the kickstart file is only compatible with RedHat based distributions like CentOS not Debian based distributions like Ubuntu.
You would have to find another method of getting the installer configured.

[egghead0]

Hi Guys,

Big!! Thank you for this script, really useful!

I am no expect, and I am pretty certain kickstart.php would need to be replicated and changed for this to work, but would this be the correct script for Ubuntu 9.10? I am no expert so don't trust my editing skills lol:

#!/bin/sh
# install.sh

#########################################################################
#                                                                       #
# Name:        kInstall                                                 #
# Description: kInstall is a bash script + PHP kickstart file used for  #
#              installing the latest version of CentOS 5 remotely on a  #
#              dedicated server in an automated fashion.                #
# Version:     v1.0.2                                                   #
# Changelog:   www.iainkay.co.uk/scripts/kInstall/Changelog.txt         #
# Author:      Iain Kay      #
# License:     Released under the GNU General Public License (v3)    #
#                                                                       #
#########################################################################

# Print information and allow the user the chance to cancel

echo "-----------------------------------------------------------------"
echo "This script will install Ubuntu 9.10 on your OVH dedicated server"
echo "-----------------------------------------------------------------"
echo "  >> After installation your root password will be 'changemoi' <<"
echo "-----------------------------------------------------------------"
echo " !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  "
echo " This script will begin in 10 seconds. It will only take seconds "
echo " before re-booting to begin installation. Press Ctrl+C to cancel "
echo "-----------------------------------------------------------------"
echo ""
sleep 10

# Make sure that the root user is running the script

if [ "$(id -u)" != "0" ]; then
   echo "This script must be run as root" 1>&2
   exit 1
fi

# Have we been told to use 32-bit install?

NO_ARGS=0
OPTERROR=65

while getopts "32" Option
do
  case $Option in
    3 | 2 ) ARCH="i386";;
  esac
done

if [ $# -eq "$NO_ARGS" ]; then
  ARCH="amd64"
fi

# Download the kernel and initrd image to /boot

echo "Changing directory to /boot..."
cd /boot
echo "Downloading kernel..."
wget --quiet http://mir1.ovh.net/ftp.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/karmic/main/installer-$ARCH/current/images/hd-media/vmlinuz
echo "Downloading initrd gz..."
wget --quiet http://mir1.ovh.net/ftp.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/karmic/main/installer-$ARCH/current/images/hd-media/initrd.gz
echo "Unpacking and removing gz..."
tar -zxf initrd.gz
rm -f initrd.gz

# Check for the presence of apt-get on Debian
echo "Checking if the system is running Debian..."
if [ -f /usr/bin/grub ]; then
echo "running Debian"
echo "Installing grub (if necessary) with apt-get…"
/usr/bin/apt-get install grub -y > /dev/null
fi

# Check for the presence of yum on CentOS
echo "Checking if the system is running CentOS..."
if [ -f /usr/bin/yum ]; then
echo "running CentOS"
echo "Installing grub (if necessary) with yum..."
/usr/bin/yum install grub -y > /dev/null
fi

# Determine IP Address and Gateway

echo "Determining your IPv4 Address and Gateway..."
IPV4_ADDRESS=$(ifconfig | grep 'inet addr:'| grep -v '127.0.0.1' | cut -d: -f2 | awk '{ print $1}')
IPV4_GATEWAY=$(route -n | grep 'UG[ \t]' | awk '{print $2}')

# Create menu.lst with all required info passed from variables

echo "Creating /boot/grub/menu.lst..."
echo "default 0" > /boot/grub/menu.lst
echo "timeout 5" >> /boot/grub/menu.lst
echo "title Ubuntu 9.10 Install" >> /boot/grub/menu.lst
echo "root (hd0,0)" >> /boot/grub/menu.lst
echo "kernel /boot/vmlinuz text ip="$IPV4_ADDRESS "netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway="$IPV4_GATEWAY "dns=208.67.222.222 ksdevice=eth0 ks=http://development.iainkay.co.uk/scripts/linux/kInstall/kickstart.php?ip="$IPV4_ADDRESS"&gateway="$IPV4_GATEWAY"&arch="$ARCH >> /boot/grub/menu.lst
echo "initrd /boot/initrd.img" >> /boot/grub/menu.lst

# Install grub to the MBR of the hard disk

echo "Installing GRUB to MBR of hard disk..."
grub-install /dev/sda > /dev/null
grub-install --recheck /dev/sda > /dev/null

# Reboot the server to begin installation

echo "Rebooting to begin installation..."
/sbin/reboot

# End script

exit 0 

[glidewave]

IainK:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation X58 I/O Hub to ESI Port (rev 13)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 13)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 13)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 13)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 7 (rev 13)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 9 (rev 13)
00:10.0 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Physical and Link Layer Registers Port 0 (rev 13)
00:10.1 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Routing and Protocol Layer Registers Port 0 (rev 13)
00:14.0 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub System Management Registers (rev 13)
00:14.1 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub GPIO and Scratch Pad Registers (rev 13)
00:14.2 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub Control Status and RAS Registers (rev 13)
00:14.3 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub Throttle Registers (rev 13)
00:16.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 13)
00:16.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 13)
00:16.2 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 13)
00:16.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 13)
00:16.4 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 13)
00:16.5 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 13)
00:16.6 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 13)
00:16.7 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Chipset QuickData Technology Device (rev 13)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 4 port SATA IDE Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection
06:04.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200eW WPCM450 (rev 0a)

[IainK]

@Glidewave: I would assume that the CentOS installer and/or stock kernel does not have drivers for your servers ethernet card. No guarantees but this issue affected some one else too.

You could run 'lspci' and paste the results in here and I could check if the driver comes with the stock kernel. Particularly interested in your network card and sata controller details.

[glidewave]

IainK:

I gave it a try on an EG SSD 09 and it did not work. Process was pretty simple, but after executing the command and letting it go, the intermittent pingouts became completely unresponsive and all connections refused after about 10mins.... tried a few times (even did a clean install from manager).

Not sure what info would be helpful to troubleshoot....

J



driver: e1000e
version: 1.0.2-k2
firmware-version: 1.8-0

[HandsomeChap]

Confirming works on kimsufi i7-4T due to messing about with configs, ended up using this script 3 times, 2nd time hung and did not work, tried again, it worked. So if you try and it fails for you, try again as it might be random error.

Thanks Iain for script and helping me!! :-)

[IainK]

The partitioning is currently set to:
/ - 20Gb
swap - 512mb
/home - the rest.

FYI: I think 512mb swap is more than adequate, considering most of the servers have 2-8GB ram and some even more. Any more swapping and your system will just get slow.

I've been busy with a lot of other coding work so haven't had a chance to get many updates done to this yet.

[HandsomeChap]

Was the partitioning on this updated in the end Ian?

[AdamD]

Howdy, aye yes it did reboot ok
I can't remember off the top of my head if I had any other problems, but I did use it in production use with the Virtualmin control panel and a few websites
I ended up removing it later on and installing the 64bit OVH version though.

Forgot to say, that was on one of the Kimsufi's Q6660 machines.

[IainK]

@AdamB: after installing it did you manage to reboot in normal mode and successfully ping the box? I have tried to install with vKVM before and the installation went great but when it came to the reboot it didn't have the correct drivers configured for booting up.

[AdamD]

I managed to install Centos 5 via the vKVM system, seemed to work ok, although on the first try the vKVM screen didn't let me enter any details, heh
After a reboot it worked ok and I installed Centos 5 ok.

[IainK]

Right. So I would be looking at creating a pxe image that includes all OVH network card drivers. I guess I could email support and ask them for a list.
Then for installation I would probably have to package the network card drivers as rpm and install them with anaconda using the kickstart.
Seems doable. Either that or have the bash script check for the presence of a network card that doesn't have drivers with stock distro.

[bago]

I was thinking about doing some pre-checks, and if the NIC has been detected you just pass a different Kickstart file.
Never worked with Kickstart that much, so not sure if there is some kind of option to do it within the Kickstart file.

IMHO the issue is that the kickstart file is retrieved via web, so the network card must be supported in the pxeboot image.
As I said before I *installed* the clean centos in a 3XL, but I had to
1) create my own pxeimage including the network drivers so that the automatic install worked
2) once I completed the install I had to start in vKVM to install the required driver in the main filesystem.

[IainK]

@adrovek: add me to MSN or AIM at iainkay[at]me[dot]com

[adrovek]

My keyboard is Slovenian, but i copy/pasted the password etc... with no luck!

IanK, can i give you my details via MSN or somehow and you check my server to see what's wrong? :P

[derchris]

Maybe bago can help out as a guinea pig

[IainK]

@derchris: yeah that would probably be the best idea. The problem is I don't have a 3XL (or any old model OVH servers for that matter) so can't test it myself.

[derchris]

@bago: Updated the first post to reflect that it doesn't work on the 3XL.

@adrovek: you should be able to login fine with that password as the kickstart file is definitely passing it. Are you trying to provide the password with quotes? You should just be typing in

username: root
password: changemoi

@derchris: any ideas how I would go about doing this? Particularly how I could stop it being installed if not required?

I was thinking about doing some pre-checks, and if the NIC has been detected you just pass a different Kickstart file.
Never worked with Kickstart that much, so not sure if there is some kind of option to do it within the Kickstart file.

[IainK]

@adrovek: that is very strange. The only thing I could think is that someone is changing the password before you get a chance to login, but that would be less and less likely with each reinstall.
Or possibly your keyboard isn't liking the en_GB keymap that CentOS is being told to use as default.

Could you confirm what keyboard you use? e.g. US, UK, French etc

[adrovek]

Well IainK i have tryed 5 times, reinstalling etc... i can't log-in and i have tryed with quotes and without quotes!

I have Kimsufi i7-2T :S

[IainK]

@bago: Updated the first post to reflect that it doesn't work on the 3XL.

@adrovek: you should be able to login fine with that password as the kickstart file is definitely passing it. Are you trying to provide the password with quotes? You should just be typing in

username: root
password: changemoi

@derchris: any ideas how I would go about doing this? Particularly how I could stop it being installed if not required?

[adrovek]

I can't login now :S using password "changemoi" :S

it says:
login as: root
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Password:
Access denied

[derchris]

This can be easily done with a custom kickstart file, which will install the required network drivers at the end.

[bago]

Hi, just for the record I done some centos installation (using vnc instead of full kickstarting) and I found that with "Kimsufi 3XL" it is much harder because of this ethernet controller:
-------------
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. L1 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev b0)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. P5KPL-VM Motherboard
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 233
Memory at febc0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
Expansion ROM at feba0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [48] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable+
Capabilities: [58] Express Endpoint IRQ 0
-------------
This require some kernel driver that is not in the default centos, so it won't work out of the box. In order to do a clean install on Kimsufi 3XL I had to write my own netboot image (adding the driver) and then once the installation completed to install the attansic driver via vKVM. (Far from being a simple thing).

So I suggest to add in the first post not to try this with Kimsufi 3XL, or at least to check "lspci -v" output to see what ethernet card is in the box.

[Rahxie]

Thank you! I had to install the stock CentOS 5 and used a guide on some site that took a while editing files etc. This will save all the hassle when I get another OVH server (possibly when the setup fees are gone). .

[IainK]

Version 1.0.2.1 of my script is now released!

Now when you run the code on the first page you will be using the updated script!

This version is a minor update with the following changes:

[1.0.2]
- Instead of hosting 2 bash scripts, one for 32-bit installs and one for 64-bit installs, I've updated the script so that it will install 64-bit by default or you can pass the '-32' argument and install on 32-bit servers.
This will make it quicker for me to update the script in future.

[1.0.2.1]
- Fixed the script hanging due to incorrect URL for the kickstart file

[IainK]

Version 1.0.1 of my script is now released!

Now when you run the code on the first page you will be using the updated script!

This version is a minor update with the following changes:

- Changed the way the kickstart file determines your IP address. Now instead of using PHP to work out which IP address is calling the script it is passed by the bash script to the kickstart file by way of a variable.

- Changed the way that gateway is determined. Instead of stripping the last 3 characters from your IP address, which was just an all round bad idea after a long night drinking far too much coffee, the gateway is worked out by the bash script and passed as a variable also.


@gregoryfenton: this fixes your IP issue

[IainK]

@gregoryfenton: I see I see! I'm changing the way the kickstart file works just now and it will all be fixed shortly.
Instead of working out the IP address based on the client accessing the kickstart php file it will be getting passed in as a variable from the script running on your server. The script running on the server also currently works out the gateway properly, so I can just pass that in as well and get rid of the need to strip anything from the IP address.
This will not only fix the gateway issue for those of you with less than 12 digit IP addresses but it will make the script compatible with other server providers too!

@Neil (OVH): Thanks for moving my post, I really didn't want to have to re-post

I'm also changing partitioning to LVM based so that users can change the partitioning themselves afterwards and possibly coding in the ability to choose between a few pre-partitioning options.
At some point I'm going to change the requirement that the script be run from a CentOS install too, so that users of Debian based distributions can re-install straight to CentOS.

[Neil]

Nice guide, it has been moved.

[gregoryfenton]

@gregoryfenton: I'm not sure why the gateway is appearing like that for you. I'm only replacing the last 3 digits of your IP address and making them 254 with PHP.

There's your problem.

With an IP of 101.102.103.4 removing the last 3 characters and replacing them with 254 will remove the 3.4 from above and replace it with 101.102.10254

Try strrpos instead:

        $ip = "101.102.103.4"; // or from your existing code
        $l = strlen($ip);            
        $p = strrpos($ip,'.');
        $gateway = substr($ip,0,$p) . ".254";
        echo "IP: $ip length: $l last '.': $p gateway: $gateway";

[derchris]

What you could do is get a selection of packages required/needed for a headless server/
Like web/mail/ssh/ftp ...
And use that for the package installation.

I might also get a script done for my Debian remote install guide

[IainK]

@gregoryfenton: I'm not sure why the gateway is appearing like that for you. I'm only replacing the last 3 digits of your IP address and making them 254 with PHP.
I will be upgrading this functionality very shortly as the script downloaded and running on your server already detects the proper gateway so I can just pass that through to the php file.

To Do:
Allow the user to partition and format however they want
Upgrade the way my php kickstart file works out the gateway

I may or may not code in functionality allowing the user to pick which package groups to install. I think going into specific packages would be beyond the scope of a text only script.

[derchris]

No problem here.
Gateway showing correctly.

[gregoryfenton]

I just grabbed the files for this and see a problem in the kickstart.php file:

network --device eth0 --bootproto static --ip 77.103.248.9 --netmask 255.255.255.0 --gateway 77.103.24254 --nameserver 208.67.222.222 --hostname 77-103-248-9.cable.ubr07.wals.blueyonder.co.uk

The --gateway is incorrectly parsed.

[derchris]

@derchris, this is a very valid point. Initially I was going to make a php form that would allow for creation of a custom kickstart file for each user and then that user would pass this into the script by entering a URL.
The reason I chose to use kickstart over VNC wasn't actually for simplicity alone however as when I tried to get my bottom line Kimsufi to boot with VNC installer it would never start whereas the kickstart always seems to work.

Perhaps I should re-create the kickstart file to create an LVM group so that any partitions could be resized and changed later by the user. Or perhaps I should code in some options that allow the user to specify some options before the reboot and have them passed to the kickstart php file as variables. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

For the sake of simplicity however it currently partitions the hard drive in the default way OVH does:
/ 20GB ext3
swap 1GB swap
/home (the rest) ext3

Personally I just remove the /home and create an LVM volume group there which I use for Xen DomU's.

That would make sense.
Add some variables to the PHP script.
Ask the user some questions during the install, and then add these as posts to the PHP URL.
If none option selected, just leave it as default.

[IainK]

@Myatu: I actually noticed the new How-To forum after I had posted this (doh!) I've been away from these parts recently.
If you do try it please post back and let me know how it went and what server you used

I request that any mods move this post there if they think that it would be better, or I could re-post, but I feel it would be better to have it moved.

[Myatu]

I really like this. Thanks Iain! You should have put this in the new "How To" forum

[IainK]

@derchris, this is a very valid point. Initially I was going to make a php form that would allow for creation of a custom kickstart file for each user and then that user would pass this into the script by entering a URL.
The reason I chose to use kickstart over VNC wasn't actually for simplicity alone however as when I tried to get my bottom line Kimsufi to boot with VNC installer it would never start whereas the kickstart always seems to work.

Perhaps I should re-create the kickstart file to create an LVM group so that any partitions could be resized and changed later by the user. Or perhaps I should code in some options that allow the user to specify some options before the reboot and have them passed to the kickstart php file as variables. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

For the sake of simplicity however it currently partitions the hard drive in the default way OVH does:
/ 20GB ext3
swap 1GB swap
/home (the rest) ext3

Personally I just remove the /home and create an LVM volume group there which I use for Xen DomU's.

[derchris]

Nice guide, but has one simple limitation.
There is no configuration possible for the user.
I would like to prefer to choose how my disk layout should look like, what packages are going to be installed ....
That is not the case with a Kickstart install, as all values are pre-defined.
I still prefer the VNC install.

[Winit]

You're awesome

[IainK]

If you are reading this then for whatever reason you are unhappy with the OVH customised CentOS 5 distribution and would like to install a clean stock distribution with stock kernel.

In the past other OVH forums members have come up with ways of installing CentOS remotely on your OVH server using VNC. However this method is much easier. You don't have to edit configuration files and don't have to manually run the installer. All you need to do is copy and paste one command.
Interested?

Before performing these steps ensure that you are running either CentOS or a Debian based distribution that supports apt-get.


If you are installing on a 64-bit compatible server, which almost all of OVH's 2009/2010 range servers are, then use the following command:

wget http://development.iainkay.co.uk/scripts/linux/kInstall/install.sh && sh install.sh

If you are installing on a 32-bit only server, such as the Kimsufi Celeron 1.2GHz, then use the following command instead:

wget http://development.iainkay.co.uk/scripts/linux/kInstall/install.sh && sh install.sh -32

Once the script has completed and your server is rebooting the only thing you can do is start pinging it and watch. You should notice that at first the pings are being lost, then when the installation starts the server should start responding to pings. After the installation completes the server will drop pings again. When it starts responding again you can login via SSH with username root and the password 'changemoi'.

At this point you should type 'passwd' and change the root password immediately.

TESTED ON:
Kimsufi C-05G - 32BIT - Works
Kimsufi Q-1T - 64BIT - Works
Kimsufi 3XL - 64BIT - Doesn't work, problems with network card
Kimsufi i7-2T - 64BIT - One user has reported a problem with password after install
Kimsufi i7-4T (with 3ware HW raid10) - 64BIT - Works
Any Soft Raid - does not setup disks/boot correctly. [fix soon]

NOTE: On older OVH servers you may have more success using VNC method, or may have issues with drivers preventing the installation of a stock CentOS.

How does it work?
I wrote a simple bash script to download the required PXE boot kernel and initrd image to /boot on your server as well as configure and install grub.
Instead of using VNC the installer is setup and told what to do by way of a kickstart file. The kickstart file is made with PHP so that the bash script can pass various information about your server including IP address and gateway via variables.

Hopefully this should help at least some people who wish to use stock CentOS kernel or just want a nice clean installation. Let me know how it goes!