Please provide installer kernel and initrd from daily-live images as separate download for netbooting
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ubuntu CD Images |
New
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
subiquity |
New
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
If someone is going to do a netboot installation with subiquity, which is the new default installer for _all_ architectures starting with 20.04 (for some already earlier), one of the first things needed is to download the installer kernel and initrd.
In the past 'd-i days' people went to:
http://
and downloaded just the kernel and initrd from there.
(and hopefully validated their download with the checksums ...)
Now with subiquity one has to download the entire daily-live ISO, just to extract kernel and initrd (taking it from the casper folder of the ISO) and use it to start (net-)booting.
In a further (early installation) step the daily-live ISO is then downloaded again and finally subiquity started.
Hence the daily-live ISO is downloaded twice!
That's btw. the same for all architectures, even if the netboot process is a bit different.
See exemplarily the sequence of steps for amd64:
https:/
and ppc64el:
https:/
(but again, the same also for arm64 etc.)
Since this is a waste of resources it would be best if the daily-live kernel and initrd can be made available as separate downloads, too (incl. checksums) - knowing that things are a bit more strict here, since the kernel and initrd needs to fit exactly to the ISO that is used later.
Anyway, still doable by mentioning/using the timestamp in the kernel/initrd download folder or have it as part of the URL.
Please let me add that the directory structure of the daily-live installation kernel and initrd should be compatible to "virt-install --location"'s distribution tree installations.
Distributio n tree installation source. virt-install can recognize /ftp.us. debian. org/debian/ dists/stable/ main/installer- amd64/ /us.archive. ubuntu. com/ubuntu/ dists/wily/ main/installer- amd64/
Some snippets form the man page:
-l, --location OPTIONS
certain distribution trees and fetches a bootable kernel/initrd
pair to launch the install.
...
Some distro specific url samples:
...
Debian
https:/
Ubuntu
https:/
Please notice that using --cdrom is not a valid alternative to --location, since --extra-args for kernel arguments is only supported in combination with --location.
With the change of the URL from: archive. ubuntu. com/ubuntu/ dists/focal/ main/installer- amd64/current/ images/ archive. ubuntu. com/ubuntu/ dists/focal/ main/installer- amd64/current/ legacy- images/
http://
to
http://
virt-install is currently broken on Ubuntu (for all architectures), since virt-install looks for .../images/
(see also LP 1872941)
With a proper location and layout for the daily-live installer artifacts virt-install could be made operational again, which is highly desirable, since it's a popular tool used by partners and customers (even if it's in universe).
And almost all other distros support it too (see man page), so we should not fall behind ...