iac

Infrastructure as Code.

This project installs and configures Arch Linux, Debian or Ubuntu operating systems fully automated.

⚠ Make sure to create a .env file and reference to the correct code branch with the env vars in it!

Features:

• 💿 Build the installer ISO image in a Docker environment
• 💡 Read hostname and OS type from UEFI variables or use cloud-init
• 🔨 Install a minimal Arch Linux OS, Debian OS or Ubuntu OS
• ❓ Decide target disk for installation, etc by hostname
• 🔐 Setup root password, SSH keys and user accounts
• 🚀 Autostart OS configuration at first boot
• 💻 Autostart Desktop configuration at first Desktop logon
• ⏱ From blank disk to booted system in ~15 Minutes

Workflow base installation & hostname based configuration:

graph LR
    build["Build<br>ISO"] --> boot["Boot<br>ISO"]
    boot --> bootstrap["Run<br>bootstrap"]
    bootstrap --> reboot1["Reboot into<br>new OS"]
    autorun1["Autorun host<br>playbook on<br>first boot<br>(Install OS components)"]
    autorun1 --> reboot2["Reboot"]
    reboot2 --> xfce["Boot into<br>XFCE4"]
    xfce --> autorun2["Run host<br>playbook on<br>first XFCE Login<br>(Configure XFCE4)"]
    autorun2 --> logout["Logout<br>to load<br>XFCE settings"]
    logout --> done["Done!"]

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Known Issues

• selfsignedcert role is not idempotent

Architecture

All packages are installed from the official sources.

• bash
• systemd
• systemd-networkd (DHCP on all ens* interfaces)
• systemd-timesyncd
• systemd-resolved
• net-tools + dnsutils
• nano + vim
• curl + wget
• Ansible

OS	#Packages	#Processes	Size	Memory
Ubuntu 24.04 "Noble"	~390	14	2.5GB	280MB
Debian 12 "Bookworm"	~390	14	2.2GB	270MB
Arch Linux	~170	20	2.7GB	300MB

archiso

Archiso is used as a base for the Installer ISO. archiso/ contains a Dockerfile and some scripts to build a custom Arch Linux installer ISO with additional scripts.

• ./archiso/build.sh builds the container image
• ./archiso/pack.sh runs the container image to build the Arch Linux ISO image
• ISO Image can be found in ./archiso/output/

Requires Docker CE, pack.sh executes a container in privileged mode.

Automatic configuration with Cloud-Init

Works with terraform, to be documented here.

Automatic hostname detection with UEFI varables

The perrys-bootstrapper.sh script is using UEFI variables to fetch the hostname from the system and use the correct ansible inventory variables.

Set hostname in UEFI variable:

echo -n myhostname > efi-hostname
efivar --name ed38a5bf-1135-4b0f-aa72-49d30b05dfd4-PerryHostname -w -f efi-hostname

Get the hostname from UEFI variable:

cat /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PerryHostname-ed38a5bf-1135-4b0f-aa72-49d30b05dfd4

In addition the variable PerryFlavor-ed38a5bf-1135-4b0f-aa72-49d30b05dfd4 can be used to set the flavor (debian or archlinux).

How to install a OS

• Build the Arch Linux ISO image
• Boot ISO in a virtual machine or on a physical system
• Ensure that the diskdev and bootmode are correct in the inventoy
• Run installer
  • Debian: perrys-bootstrapper.sh --flavor debian --hostname biostest
  • Arch Linux: perrys-bootstrapper.sh --flavor archlinux --hostname biostest
• Reboot into the new OS

How to decide which settings should be used

The bootstrapparameters in the Ansible inventory decide which hostname uses which settings.

• bootmode: One of uefi or bios
• diskdev: For example /dev/sda
• firstbootplaybook: Boolean, running host-specific playbook on first boot?
• networking: One of network-manager or systemd-networkd
• encryptedfs: Boolean, encrypt the root filesystem?

Configure OS

Run perrys-ansible-apply.sh as root.

It pulls automatically the correct playbook from this repo by the hostname of the operating system.

Ansible Roles

Every role was created for a specific case and may support only a single OS, please see task code and readme file.