kantankerus / ubuntu-unattended

Script to create unattended Ubuntu ISO

Unattended Ubuntu ISO Maker for The Centr

This simple script will create an unattended Ubuntu ISO from start to finish, customized for use with an The Centr AcePC AK1 device. It will ask you a few questions once, and embed your answers into a remastered ISO file for you to use over and over again.

This script creates a 100% original Ubuntu installation; no additional software is added, not even an apt-get update is performed. You have all the freedom in the world to customize your Ubuntu installation whichever way you see fit. This script just takes the pain out of re-installing Ubuntu over and over again.

Consider using tools like chef or puppet to perform any additional software installations/configurations.

Originally forked from: https://github.com/netson/ubuntu-unattended
Created by: Rinck Sonnenberg (Netson) (Thank you Rinck!)
Modified by: Brock Harris (The Centr)

In addition to the original scope of the software, this script has been customized as follows:

• Specific support for AcePC AK1 hardware device.
• Specific configuration customizations for The Centr including creation of a hybrid UEFI ISO and customized partitioning scheme.
• Addition of official repositories for Docker, Nodesource and Puppetlabs.

Compatibility

The script supports the following Ubuntu editions out of the box:

• Ubuntu 18.04 Server LTS amd64 - Bionic Beaver

Script automatically chooses the latest current image by parsing http://releases.ubuntu.com page.

This script has been customized to work on Bionic, use on other releases may or may not work as expected.

Usage

• From your command line, run the following commands:

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kantankerus/ubuntu-unattended/master/create-unattended-iso.sh
$ chmod +x create-unattended-iso.sh
$ sudo ./create-unattended-iso.sh

 +---------------------------------------------------+
 |            UNATTENDED UBUNTU ISO MAKER            |
 +---------------------------------------------------+

 please enter your preferred timezone: Europe/Amsterdam

• Enter your desired timezone; the default is Europe/Amsterdam:

• Enter your desired username; the default is tcadmin:

 please enter your preferred username: tcadmin

• Enter the password for your user account; the default is empty

 please enter your preferred password:

• Confirm your password:

 confirm your preferred password:

• Sit back and relax, while the script does the rest! :)

What it does

This script does a bunch of stuff, here's the quick walk-through:

• Downloads the latest Bionic Ubuntu original ISO straight from the Ubuntu servers; if a file with the exact name exists, it will use that instead (so it won't download it more than once if you are creating several unattended ISO's with different defaults)
• Downloads the thecentr preseed file; this file contains all the magic answers to auto-install ubuntu. It uses the following defaults for you (only showing most important, for details, simply check the seed file in this repository):
• Language/locale: en_US
• Keyboard layout: US International
• Root login disabled (so make sure you write down your default usernames' password!)
• Partitioning: eMMC specific, LVM, full disk, multiple partitions including UEFI.
• Install the mkpasswd program (part of the whois package) to generate a hashed version of your password
• Install the genisoimage program to generate the new ISO file
• Mount the downloaded ISO image to a temporary folder
• Copy the contents of the original ISO to a working directory
• Set the default installer language
• Add/update the preseed file
• Add the autoinstall option to the installation menu
• Generate the new ISO file
• Cleanup
• Show a summary of what happended:

 installing required packages
 remastering your iso file
 creating the remastered iso
 -----
 finished remastering your ubuntu iso file
 the new file is located at: /tmp/ubuntu-14.04.2-server-amd64-unattended.iso
 your username is: netson
 your password is: 
 your hostname is: ubuntu
 your timezone is: Europe/Amsterdam

Once Ubuntu is installed ...

Needs Updated: Puppet stuff

That's it, enjoy! :)

Troubleshooting

If you run into any issues, please create an issue; I am by no means a shell/bash expert (far from it), and it took me a while to compile this script into something that's easy to use and just works, but I'm happy to help where I can! :)

License

MIT