Bootstrap Debian VM with virt-install

· 228 words · 2 minute read

Installing a small Debian VM from scratch with only one partition. Makes later resizing easier. This was done on Fedora 32.

Preparations 🔗

Install software 🔗

libvirt is already installed on Fedora 32. It’s used in Gnome Boxes. We will not use that for this. We’ll do it the old fashioned way with virt-install.

sudo dnf install -y virt-manager virt-install

User access to libvirt 🔗

Add your user to the group libvirt.

sudo usermod -aG libvirtd $USER

Installation 🔗

  1. Create a default preseed.cfg file. It contain a random root password for this installation. We change the installation to be atomic layout, just one big partition. This file can be reused to your hearts desire.

    osinfo-install-script -p jeos debian10
sed -i 's/home/oneroot/' preseed.cfg
cat <<EOF >> preseed.cfg
d-i partman-basicfilesystems/no_swap boolean false
d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe string oneroot :: 1000 50 -1 ext4 \\
 \$primary{ } \$bootable{ } method{ format } \\
 format{ } use_filesystem{ } filesystem{ ext4 } \\
 mountpoint{ / } \\
.
EOF

  2. Edit preseed.cfg and make your own customisations if any.

  3. Install VM and send back some information to the community with popularity contest.

    virt-install --connect qemu:///system \
  --console pty,target_type=serial \
  --disk size=10,driver.discard=unmap,target.bus=virtio \
  --graphics none \
  --initrd-inject preseed.cfg \
  --location http://ftp.no.debian.org/debian/dists/buster/main/installer-amd64 \
  --name debian10 \
  --os-type linux \
  --os-variant debian10 \
  --ram 2048 \
  --vcpus 2 \
  --extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial locale=nb_NO keymap=no auto=true mirror/country=manual mirror/http/hostname=ftp.no.debian.org mirror/http/directory=/debian mirror/http/proxy= passwd/make-user=false popularity-contest/participate=true file=/preseed.cfg'
debian libvirt