Add Ubuntu automatic installation

[DaniilKl]

Adds Automatic installation of Ubuntu Desktop instance via netboot.xyz preconfigured using Dasharo/preseeds repo.

[DaniilKl]

Verification results:

λ robot -b file.txt -L TRACE -v ansible_config:yes -v rte_ip:127.0.0.1 -v snipeit:no -v config:qemu operating-systems/ubuntu.robot
==============================================================================
Ubuntu                                                                        
==============================================================================
UBOS001.001 Ubuntu 22.04 is installable :: Try to install ubuntu v... | PASS |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ubuntu                                                                | PASS |
1 test, 1 passed, 0 failed
==============================================================================
Debug:   /home/user/Projects/Dasharo/open-source-firmware-validation/file.txt
Output:  /home/user/Projects/Dasharo/open-source-firmware-validation/output.xml
Log:     /home/user/Projects/Dasharo/open-source-firmware-validation/log.html
Report:  /home/user/Projects/Dasharo/open-source-firmware-validation/report.html

[macpijan]

Do you have any data on how long it can take? Should I see any progress?
Trying on APU2, seeing just:

Specify autoinstall URL for Ubuntu noble:http://192.168.10.30
Loading Ubuntu Subiquity Network Installer...
https://github.com/netbootxyz/ubuntu-squash/releases/download/24.04-dac09526/vml
inuz.... ok 
https://github.com/netbootxyz/ubuntu-squash/releases/download/24.04-dac09526/ini
trd... ok 

MD5sums:
b194f9469b330d2fef04d07eb13ce2b6  vmlinuz
10cce5b2ac680f070f0de8a63b611e18  initrd
EFI stub: Loaded initrd from LINUX_EFI_INITRD_MEDIA_GUID device path
EFI stub: WARNING: Failed to obtain seed from EFI_RNG_PROTOCOL or EFI variable

[DaniilKl]

For me the longest installation time was around 20 minutes. During installation you should see a lot of installer logs on your monitor (or serial port), so in your case I guess the installation failed on chaining Ubuntu installer from iPXE.

[DaniilKl]

Noticed some weird behavior on freshly auto-installed Ubuntu 24.04: it takes too much time to boot it (4-5 minutes). I have found following logs in dmesg:

(...)
[FAILED] Failed to start systemd-networkd-w… Wait for Network to be Configured.
See 'systemctl status systemd-networkd-wait-online.service' for details.
         Starting cloud-init.service - Init…t job (metadata service crawler)...
[  132.110535] cloud-init[1100]: Cloud-init v. 24.1.3-0ubuntu3.3 running 'init' at Mon, 08 Jul 2024 07:39:59 +0000. Up 132.09 seconds.
[  132.156613] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Net device info+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[  132.169123] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: +-----------+-------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------------------+
[  132.182108] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: |   Device  |   Up  |  Address  |    Mask   | Scope |     Hw-Address    |
[  132.195117] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: +-----------+-------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------------------+
[  132.208141] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: |   enp3s0  | False |     .     |     .     |   .   | d8:bb:c1:8c:be:7e |
[  132.222120] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: |     lo    |  True | 127.0.0.1 | 255.0.0.0 |  host |         .         |
[  132.236075] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: |     lo    |  True |  ::1/128  |     .     |  host |         .         |
[  132.249070] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: | wlp0s20f3 | False |     .     |     .     |   .   | 64:6e:e0:6b:9e:82 |
[  132.262063] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: +-----------+-------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------------------+
[  132.275069] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: +++++++++++++++++++Route IPv6 info+++++++++++++++++++
[  132.286024] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: +-------+-------------+---------+-----------+-------+
[  132.297067] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: | Route | Destination | Gateway | Interface | Flags |
[  132.309111] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: +-------+-------------+---------+-----------+-------+
[  132.320068] cloud-init[1100]: ci-info: +-------+-------------+---------+-----------+-------+
         Starting modprobe@dm_mod.service - Load Kernel Module dm_mod...
         Starting modprobe@efi_pstore.servi… - Load Kernel Module efi_pstore...
         Starting [email protected] - Load Kernel Module loop...
         Starting systemd-networkd-wait-onl…ait for Network to be Configured...
(...)

It seems it tries to start systemd-networkd-wait-online for 4 minutes and fails, then it continues to boot system. What is interesting, though, the system boots with network connection configured.

I do not know what is going on but two facts are certain: the system boots significantly slower and Ubuntu 22.04 did not have such problems.

[macpijan]

Because no one has successfully repeated this yet. And for installing on hardware we mostly use this method which has worked so far: https://github.com/Dasharo/preseeds?tab=readme-ov-file#ubuntu

[DaniilKl]

Because no one has successfully repeated this yet.

I have used it several times while running tests on several platforms. If smbd met any problem here - then the problem should be reported and handled accordingly.

[macpijan]

I think I tried once or twice and reported once. Also asked @dawidlesiak many times to do so.

I guess the limitation is here that in 90% of cases we need Ubuntu to be installed alongside of Windows, not on the whole disk?

[pietrushnic]

I guess the limitation is here that in 90% of cases we need Ubuntu to be installed alongside of Windows, not on the whole disk?

Why? Where do we get that limitation from?

I want to rebase this code on my seabios changes and try it in QEMU; what would be the best approach to that?

[DaniilKl]

I want to rebase this code on my seabios changes and try it in QEMU; what would be the best approach to that?

Just rebase and run it using standard OSFV workflow for Qemu.

Hope there were no changes in netboot.xyz menu since last time I used this workflow. Otherwise, you may have problems, because, as you can see from code, currently netboot.xyz menu is hardcoded.

[macpijan]

Why? Where do we get that limitation from?

We need W11 for testing on nearly all (except for PC Engines) platforms. There is usually one disk. W11 autoinstaller needs to go first as it erases the whole disk. Then the ubuntu semi-auto installer needs to install Ubuntu alongside of Windows with manual partition selection, which we failed to automate after several attempts IIRC: Dasharo/preseeds#5

This MR also does not solve it.

[macpijan]

If testing this on APU, be warned that at least on some of them it would not work, as the Ubuntu network ISO is already almost 3GB and would fail to load over netboot.xyz on 2GB units at least.

[pietrushnic]

@macpijan makes sense. For PC Engines my goal is different, I would choose more lightweight OS. I want to test this on QEMU. Then, I can move to hardware. Unfortunately, I keep going down the dependency hell, and there is no bottom to it so far.