iVentoy Auto Installation

Many distros provide unattended deployment solution. You just need to give a script or template for the installation.
For example, unattend xml for Windows, kickstart script for Redhat/CentOS, autoYast xml for SUSE, preseed script for Debian and so on.
In normal case, if you want to make an unattended deployment, you need to recreate a new iso file based on the original iso file, and add the script or template into the new iso file.
With iVentoy you don't need to recreate a new iso file, just use the original one. You just specify a script or template for an ISO file in iVentoy GUI and that's all. You can specify more than one scripts for an iso file at a time, iVentoy will provide a menu to choose before boot. You can also update these scripts whenever you want.

  • Supported Distros (Updating)

The example scripts are in the user/scripts/example directory of the software.

Distros Template Example Notes
Windows Unattend XML unattended.xml Windows
Deepin/UOS INI deepin.ini Deepin/UOS
RHEL8/CentOS8 Kickstart script kickstart8.cfg Distros based on them are also supported. For example OpenAnolis, RockyLinux
RHEL7/CentOS7/Fedora Kickstart script kickstart7.cfg Distros based on them are also supported. For example Oracle Linux, EuroLinux ...
RHEL6/CentOS6 Kickstart script kickstart6.cfg Distros based on them are also supported.
openEuler Kickstart script openeuler.cfg openEuler
Debian Preseed script preseed.cfg Debian
Ubuntu Server (< 20.x) Preseed script preseed.cfg Earlier Ubuntu Server Edition
Ubuntu Server (20.x+) cloud-init cloud-init-user-data Ubuntu Server 20.x+
SUSE autoYast XML autoYast.xml SLES and openSUSE

Attention! The sample script here is just for reference. You need to modify it for your hardware enviroment, especially the configuration for disk partition.

  • Configuration

Select the corresponding ISO file on the iVentoy WEB GUI, and set the auto installation script path.

  • Variables Expansion

When we do auto installation, there are some configurations in the installation script that cannot be fixed and hard-coded. The most common is the disk name or disk id.
For example, we set DISK0 or /dev/sda in the auto installation script file, but in some computer, it is not the right disk we want.
So this may install the OS to the wrong disk.

So iVentoy supports Variables Expansion in the auto installation script. The variables must be in $$VT_XXX$$ format (VT_XXX is the variables name).

Attention:
1. The auto installation script which contains variables must be in UTF-8 encoding.
2. Only variables in the following table are supported.
3. iVentoy will automatically check whether the installation script contains variables or not.
4. Variables expansion will not modify the original installation script file.

Variables Example Description
VT_MAC_COLON_LOWER 11:22:33:aa:bb:cc Client MAC address
VT_MAC_COLON_UPPER 11:22:33:AA:BB:CC Client MAC address
VT_MAC_DASH_LOWER 11-22-33-aa-bb-cc Client MAC address
VT_MAC_DASH_UPPER 11-22-33-AA-BB-CC Client MAC address
VT_SERVER_IP 192.168.100.100 iVentoy Server IP address
VT_LOCAL_IP 192.168.100.200 Client IP address
VT_NET_MASK 255.255.255.0 Subnet mask
VT_NET_MASK_LEN 24 Subnet mask len
VT_GATEWAY 192.168.100.1 Gateway address
VT_HTTP_PORT 16000 iVentoy HTTP port
VT_NBD_PORT 10809 iVentoy NBD port
VT_IMG_ID 2 IMAGE ID。
VT_IMG_PMD5 68c033b63073f1c57ea95a80dacfb887 IMG PMD5
VT_IMG_ID_HTTP_URL http://192.168.100.100:16000/eiso/id/1 URL for ISO internal files (IMGID), refer: iVentoy HTTP URL
VT_IMG_PMD5_HTTP_URL http://192.168.100.100:16000/eiso/
pmd5/68c033b63073f1c57ea95a80dacfb887
URL for ISO internal files (IMG PMD5), refer iVentoy HTTP URL
VT_WINDOWS_DISK_1ST_NONUSB 1 The first non-USB disk. According to the disk ID in Windows and can only be used in Windows unattend.xml.
VT_WINDOWS_DISK_MAX_SIZE 1 The disk with the largest capacity. According to the disk ID in Windows and can only be used in Windows unattend.xml.
VT_WINDOWS_DISK_CLOSEST_XXX 2 The disk whose capacity most closest to XXX GB.
The XXX must be replaced with a specific value, for example VT_WINDOWS_DISK_CLOSEST_300 means the disk most closest to 300GB.
Can only be used in Windows unattend.xml.
VT_LINUX_DISK_SDX_1ST_NONUSB sdb The first non-USB disk in sda sdb sdc ...
Only check disks whose name is sdX. Other disks whose name like hda/vda/nvme0n1 are not checked.
Can only be used in Linux installation script.
VT_LINUX_DISK_MAX_SIZE sdc The disk with the largest capacity.
Not limited to disks in sdX, all disks will be checked (e.g. hdX/vdX/nvmeX...).
Can only be used in Linux installation script.
VT_LINUX_DISK_CLOSEST_XXX sda The disk whose capacity most closest to XXX GB.
The XXX must be replaced with a specific value, for example VT_LINUX_DISK_CLOSEST_300 means the disk most closest to 300GB.
Not limited to disks in sdX, all disks will be checked (e.g. hdX/vdX/nvmeX...).
Can only be used in Linux installation script.


Example: unattend.xml


Example: kickstart.cfg