notthebee/ansible-role-ubuntu_autoinstall

An Ansible role for generating a custom Ubuntu Server 20.04 ISO for (semi-)automated provisioning

Ansible Role: Ubuntu Autoinstall

This role will:

• Download and verify (GPG and SHA256) the newest Ubuntu Server 20.04 ISO
• Unpack the ISO and integrate the user-data file for semi-automated installation
• Repack the ISO and (optionally) upload it to PiKVM for futher installation

Special thanks to:

• covertsh for Ubuntu Autoinstall Generator – this repo is pretty much an Ansible version of their script

Example playbook:

---
- hosts: all
  gather_facts: yes
  become: no

  roles:
    - role: notthebee.ubuntu_autoinstall

Variables

• boot_drive_serial – the serial number of the drive where you want to install Ubuntu. You can find it out using ls /dev/disk/by-id. Make sure to omit the interface (e.g. ata- or scsi-).
• iso_arch – Architecture of the output ISO file. amd64 and arm64 are supported

Other variables are more or less self-explanatory and can be found in defaults/main.yml

ansible-role-ubuntu_autoinstall's Issues

Roles Directory

Thanks for getting me started with this. However I think you were meaning to include a roles directory in this repo with notthebee.ubuntu_autoinstall in it.

grep {{ iso_arch }} {{ target_dir }}/SHA256SUMS will no longer work

Looks like there is an additional amd64 image since this was written

Replace

cmd: "grep {{ iso_arch }} {{ target_dir }}/SHA256SUMS | cut -d ' ' -f1"

with

cmd: "grep {{ iso_arch }}.iso {{ target_dir }}/SHA256SUMS | cut -d ' ' -f1"

in

download_verify.yml

Use HTTPS for pikvm API calls, use dirmngr in daemon mode and more

Hey, not sure if you expect issues/contributions to this repo, feel free to close this if not!

I had to do a couple of tweaks to get this role running successfully with my setup:

1. If dirmngr was not running, the playbook gets stuck indefinitely. Needed to start dirmngr in daemon mode.
2. API calls to pikvm were with http, I guess the default is https. Had to switch all calls to use https with cert verification skipped. Also, seems like the MSD write API expects the image name to be a query param instead of a form key-value.
3. The generated ISO path had the iso_arch appended to it, but not referenced correctly in the upload task.

I have these changes over at my fork here: main...shikharbhardwaj:main

Thanks for doing the work here, this role and the infra playbook is super helpful.

boot_drive_serial

boot_drive_serial is used in Templates/user-data.j2 but never defined in defaults.

ISO Hard to Access Without PiKVM

I ran your role on OS X without a PiKVM and had trouble uploading it to my hypervisor.

1. The role doesn't display the final location and name of the ISO so need to figure that out.
2. The ~/.local directory is unaccessible when I was trying to do a file upload through the browser. Had to move it to another directory.