ViciBox v.9.0 design decisions, how to install from here?

[Kumba]

So one of the key features, at least in my mind, of all the previous ViciBox versions has been the OS Installer. It was pretty comprehensive as far as giving you the ability to install to software RAIDs, setup strange drivers, and even use the ISO itself as a rescue disk.

Fast forward to today some 10 years later and the installer framework that ViciBox has used previously will finally die off with OpenSuSE v.42.3. This is mostly because of the rise of cloud services and because the ISO install framework was originally built around SuSE Studio which has been killed off for a few years already. Unfortunately the changes made between OpenSuSE v.42.3 and OpenSuSE v.15.0 and up are too extensive for it to be reasonably patched and made to work again.

So that brings me to an unfortunate decision. The only install option still available to me is what is called the 'OEM' installer. This is a basic ISO image that when booted up finds the first hard drive in the system and asks if you want to install the OS there or not. If you answer no it just exits with no further options. This means there are no advanced features such as partitioning, Linux MD RAID setup, device driver installation options, or a fully featured LiveCD OS to use as a rescue CD. This would need to be tested on various forms of hardware to make sure that the install works correctly but it would give you the ability to install ViciBox without an internet connection and with a known good working configuration.

The second option would be more of a package/script based installation where you would install OpenSuSE from the standard DVD, then install the ViciBox script/package on top of it. The biggest downside to this is the ever changing complexity of install packages and that you would be REQUIRED to have internet capable of downloading the needed packages. The upside would be that if you can get OpenSuSE installed on something, you can install ViciBox. The real problem in my opinion with this option is that if OpenSuSE breaks their repositories, which they do a couple times a year, you would not be able to install ViciBox until they fix it. Sometimes that is a day or two, sometimes a month. It just depend on how the repos were broken in the first place.

So the poll is simple: Should ViciBox v.9.0 use the OEM Installer or a script/package based installer?

[williamconley]

I prefer the "find a HD, install, and we'll work it from there" .iso installer. We install on the same equipment time-after-time and if we get it to work once, we're good forever (pretty much) even before connecting internet. Since RAID is pre-os and we (once again) use fairly stock equipment AND RAID provides what appears to be a generic HD to the installer (in theory), we would expect that method to give us the most reliable daily installer.

Also: we expect to have our Ubuntu installer online shortly (it already works, but the .iso and repo installation methods are under construction), which may alleviate the "custom install needed" group in parallel to the CentOS method available from gardo. We plan to make it in both .iso and repository flavors to cover as many bases as possible (but unlike gardo, it'll be "stock" vicidial at the end of the run!)

[Kumba]

Since RAID is pre-os and we (once again) use fairly stock equipment AND RAID provides what appears to be a generic HD to the installer (in theory), we would expect that method to give us the most reliable daily installer.

RAID cards have gotten pretty inexpensive now so it's not as big a deal as it used to be. A basic LSI/Adaptec card for RAID-1 can be had for $200 or less anymore. 10 years ago they were all $500 cards for a real HW RAID.

[Kumba]

In order to help me test, if anyone who wants to try installing the OEM installer let me know if it works. There's nothing really in it other then a base OS install. The way it should work is it should boot up, ask you if you want to install to the first drive it finds, install, resize the root partition to fill the full size of the drive, and then let you in.

The username is 'root' and the password is 'linux' for logging in.


ISO is here: http://download.vicidial.com/vicibox/se ... nstall.iso

Hopefully this works for legacy BIOS as well as new UEFI systems.

[williamconley]

quick install on a vSphere 6.7 server.

2 cores. 2G RAM. 30G Thin HD.

Network pulled DHCP. zypper refresh and zypper install yast2 worked just fine, so networking and OS appear solid.

No errors in logs (with nothing installed, not really surprising).

[Kumba]

quick install on a vSphere 6.7 server.

2 cores. 2G RAM. 30G Thin HD.

Network pulled DHCP. zypper refresh and zypper install yast2 worked just fine, so networking and OS appear solid.

No errors in logs (with nothing installed, not really surprising).

You have any other hardware laying around that ViciBox v.8 was difficult to install on to test?

[williamconley]

Not Handy today. Sunday is Hardware day (new servers racked and installed). Boxes are lined up ... but won't get motion 'til then. And honestly we have NO issues with Vicibox 8 (or 7,6,5 ... not since 4 I think).

[Kumba]

Not Handy today. Sunday is Hardware day (new servers racked and installed). Boxes are lined up ... but won't get motion 'til then. And honestly we have NO issues with Vicibox 8 (or 7,6,5 ... not since 4 I think).

The only server I can remember having issues with was some sort of HP or IBM server with a UEFI only bios. I think most of that boiled down to an aging kernel in 42.3. The image i'm building now is based on OpenSuSE v.15.1 which is a 4.12 kernel so should support anything released in the last few months. Hopefully since the have kind of agreed on how to do UEFI there won't be any more issues.

[Acidshock]

Sort of a fan of the install the distro and zypper the packages over or install via install script(Prefer Zypper method to some degree but I understand the problem that it brings when it comes to customization.)

This method works best for a couple reasons.
1. You may not need to update for every OS version.
2. Allows for easier automated deployment.
3. Allows for a custom partition, etc.
4. Most similar to the existing setup.

[Kumba]

ISO drive image install it is. I'll see if there's a way to easily do a software-RAID install since that's the one thing I would miss the most. A LiveCD is nice but more of a want then a need.

[Acidshock]

Can we make it modifiable/unattended with a kickstart or something? I know that's a pretty tall request.

[Nefariousparity]

Hey boys, I have Dell R610, R620, R630's. I also have dell 2950's and R900s as well as ProxMox cluster. And I have a few super Micro's spare. I will give it a test and report back.

[vkad]

ISO drive image install it is. I'll see if there's a way to easily do a software-RAID install since that's the one thing I would miss the most. A LiveCD is nice but more of a want then a need.

Hi,

Scripts should be nicer. Maybe you can host custom repositories with all the desired packages and use them with cloudflare cdn, so they are pretty much never down.

Thanks

[ageraldo6326]

Hello,

Is possible to install Vicidial 9 in a no uefi boot hardward?

[williamconley]

Hello,

Is possible to install Vicidial 9 in a no uefi boot hardward?

Vicidial is at version 2.14. ViciBOX (the installer, not the software suite) installs OpenSuSE. OpenSuSE installs nicely without uefi and always has. OpenSuSE can install on uefi, but it's not a requirement.

[sandan]

Having a lot of trouble installing ViciBox on a legacy BIOS, the below link doesn't work even to test - is there any updated iso we can try with, apologies to quote on the post made a year and half ago.
Thanks, SanDan.

In order to help me test, if anyone who wants to try installing the OEM installer let me know if it works. There's nothing really in it other then a base OS install. The way it should work is it should boot up, ask you if you want to install to the first drive it finds, install, resize the root partition to fill the full size of the drive, and then let you in.

The username is 'root' and the password is 'linux' for logging in.


ISO is here: http://download.vicidial.com/vicibox/se ... nstall.iso

Hopefully this works for legacy BIOS as well as new UEFI systems.

[williamconley]

Having a lot of trouble installing ViciBox on a legacy BIOS, the below link doesn't work even to test - is there any updated iso we can try with, apologies to quote on the post made a year and half ago.
Thanks, SanDan.

In order to help me test, if anyone who wants to try installing the OEM installer let me know if it works. There's nothing really in it other then a base OS install. The way it should work is it should boot up, ask you if you want to install to the first drive it finds, install, resize the root partition to fill the full size of the drive, and then let you in.

The username is 'root' and the password is 'linux' for logging in.


ISO is here: http://download.vicidial.com/vicibox/se ... nstall.iso

Hopefully this works for legacy BIOS as well as new UEFI systems.

Try Vicibox 8.1.2 or 8.0.1 or even 7.0.4. They work nicely on older hardware. We've even had to use 6.0.4 recently. We have several 5.0.3 machines still running. Just remember that older installs have to work with what's on the .iso, as upgrades/updates will no longer work with most of them. No zypper up. Vicidial can be upgraded (via svn), but the OS will be "stuck" with what's on the installer. Be sure you whitelist the server to avoid security problems.

http://download.vicidial.com/vicibox/server/archive/