I was able to use these steps to do an autoinstall on a BIOS based VM. They are slightly modified from my UEFI steps. Hopefully they will provide an example to help you figure out your problem. You can tailor them to your environment
Build a tftp server
All the following steps are run as root. These were tested on an Ubuntu 18.04 server.
Install the tftp server, web server, and syslinux files
apt-get -y install tftpd-hpa apache2 pxelinux
Configure apache to serve files from the tftp directory
cat > /etc/apache2/conf-available/tftp.conf <<EOF
<Directory /var/lib/tftpboot>
Options +FollowSymLinks +Indexes
Require all granted
</Directory>
Alias /tftp /var/lib/tftpboot
EOF
a2enconf tftp
systemctl restart apache2
Copy the syslinux files to the tftp directory
cp /usr/lib/PXELINUX/gpxelinux.0 /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.0.bios
cp /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/bios/*.c32 /var/lib/tftpboot
Download the live server iso
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/20.04/ubuntu-20.04-live-server-amd64.iso -O /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu-20.04-live-server-amd64.iso
Extract the kernel and initramfs from the live server iso
mount /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu-20.04-live-server-amd64.iso /mnt/
cp /mnt/casper/vmlinuz /var/lib/tftpboot/
cp /mnt/casper/initrd /var/lib/tftpboot/
umount /mnt
Configure syslinux
MYIP=$(hostname --ip-address)
mkdir -p /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
cat > /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default <<EOF
DEFAULT vesamenu.c32
TIMEOUT 600
ONTIMEOUT focal-live-install-autoinstall
PROMPT 0
NOESCAPE 1
LABEL focal-live-install
MENU DEFAULT
MENU label Install focal
KERNEL vmlinuz
INITRD initrd
APPEND root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk_size=1500000 ip=dhcp url=http://${MYIP}/tftp/ubuntu-20.04-live-server-amd64.iso
LABEL focal-live-install-autoinstall
MENU DEFAULT
MENU label Install focal - autoinstall
KERNEL vmlinuz
INITRD initrd
APPEND root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk_size=1500000 ip=dhcp url=http://${MYIP}/tftp/ubuntu-20.04-live-server-amd64.iso autoinstall ds=nocloud-net;s=http://${MYIP}/tftp/cloud-init-bios/ cloud-config-url=/dev/null
EOF
Configure cloud-init with the autoinstall configuration. I first ran the install manually to get the generated /var/log/installer/autoinstall-user-data file to use as the basis. I then made modifications based on my needs and errors encountered.
mkdir -p /var/lib/tftpboot/cloud-init-bios/
cat > /var/lib/tftpboot/cloud-init-bios/meta-data <<EOF
instance-id: focal-autoinstall
EOF
cat > /var/lib/tftpboot/cloud-init-bios/user-data <<'EOF'
#cloud-config
autoinstall:
version: 1
# use interactive-sections to avoid an automatic reboot
#interactive-sections:
# - locale
apt:
# even set to no/false, geoip lookup still happens
#geoip: no
preserve_sources_list: false
primary:
- arches: [amd64, i386]
uri: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
- arches: [default]
uri: http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports
# r00tme
identity: {hostname: focal-autoinstall, password: $6$.c38i4RIqZeF4RtR$hRu2RFep/.6DziHLnRqGOEImb15JT2i.K/F9ojBkK/79zqY30Ll2/xx6QClQfdelLe.ZjpeVYfE8xBBcyLspa/,
username: ubuntu}
keyboard: {layout: us, variant: ''}
locale: en_US.UTF-8
# interface name will probably be different
network:
network:
version: 2
ethernets:
ens192:
critical: true
dhcp-identifier: mac
dhcp4: true
ssh:
allow-pw: true
authorized-keys: []
install-server: true
# this creates an bios_grub partition, /boot partition, and root(/) lvm volume
storage:
config:
- {ptable: gpt, path: /dev/sda, wipe: superblock, preserve: false, name: '', grub_device: true,
type: disk, id: disk-sda}
- {device: disk-sda, size: 1048576, flag: bios_grub, number: 1, preserve: false,
type: partition, id: partition-0}
- {device: disk-sda, size: 1073741824, wipe: superblock, flag: '', number: 2,
preserve: false, type: partition, id: partition-1}
- {fstype: ext4, volume: partition-1, preserve: false, type: format, id: format-0}
- {device: disk-sda, size: -1, wipe: superblock, flag: '', number: 3,
preserve: false, type: partition, id: partition-2}
- name: ubuntu-vg
devices: [partition-2]
preserve: false
type: lvm_volgroup
id: lvm_volgroup-0
- {name: ubuntu-lv, volgroup: lvm_volgroup-0, size: 100%, preserve: false,
type: lvm_partition, id: lvm_partition-0}
- {fstype: ext4, volume: lvm_partition-0, preserve: false, type: format, id: format-1}
- {device: format-1, path: /, type: mount, id: mount-1}
- {device: format-0, path: /boot, type: mount, id: mount-0}
write_files:
# override the kernel package
- path: /run/kernel-meta-package
content: |
linux-virtual
owner: root:root
permissions: "0644"
# attempt to also use an answers file by providing a file at the default path. It did not seem to have any effect
#- path: /subiquity_config/answers.yaml
# content: |
# InstallProgress:
# reboot: no
# owner: root:root
# permissions: "0644"
EOF
Configure DHCP
Set the DHCP Options 66,67 according to the documentation for your DHCP server.
Boot your server
At this point, you should be able to boot your UEFI based server and perform a completely automatic install.
