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Hi @incalculable-painting-97670, I am not sure about what the issue you are encountering. Could you describe more about it?

Hello Vicente, first of all, thanks for taking the time to solve the issue with me 🙂 Oh, long story and great nightmare 🫣. Background: I ordered a server at Hetzner Datacenter https://www.hetzner.com/de/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-ax?pk_content=660441016713 For OS installation and administration, they offer 3 options 1. Debian Linux Rescue System (started vie PXE). Usage is free of charge. Unfortunately, no access to custom ISO images for installation. 2. VKVM, a virtualized environment which gives you a kind of serial console to your system https://docs.hetzner.com/robot/dedicated-server/virtualization/vkvm/ . Usage is free of charge, but no access to custom ISO images. 3. KVM paid service, where a support persons puts a usb stick with ISO image in your server and provides a special serial console which provides full access to the server (Paid per hour) As I am unfortunately rather low on budget, I am trying to learn to work with the tools I have available for free. I cannot spent money into support each time I have to fix an issue on OS level which cannot be done via SSH. Hence, I try to go with option 1 or 2, actually I assume in the meantime I have to go with 1 and 2 combined. I am seeing 2 possibilities to install Harvester on the server. First idea has not worked, and for second I am missing the right kernel parameters to boot the Harvester ISO image. Variant 1: I used the debian rescue system to partition hd and install a centos system for which an image is available. Than via SSH I go into centos, download rancher ISO, start via qemu, create ssh tunnel for vnc and install via VNC. See commands below start: qemu-system-x86_64 -netdev type=user,id=mynet0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=mynet0 -m 2048 -enable-kvm -drive index=0,format=raw,media=disk,if=virtio,file=/dev/md2 -vnc 127.0.0.1:1 -cdrom harvester-v1.2.0-amd64.iso -boot d vnc tunnel: ssh root@116.202.80.230 -L 127.0.0.15901127.0.0.1:5901 -N Unfortunately, this approach did not work because of two things. First: The ethernet card is virtualized, hence Rancher installer seems to create wrong network setup. Second, the virtual NIC I create with qemu somehow does not work. The Harvester installer has no internet, but seems to need it to get public CERT key and setup of NTP. I did the install and ignored the warnings. However, after installation Harvester does not start (broken install) Variant 2: This brought me to the idea to prepare the installation with the rescue system and do the installation in the VKVM as it provides internet access to the system. Approach: Install CENTOS with rescue system, create extra partition where to put Harvester ISO, modify BRUB Bootloader to be able to start from ISO. Log into VKVM and execute Harvester installer from there. Unfortunately, I am now stuck to set up the boot entry for GRUB correctly. My current config starts the installer but hangs during boot. Seems like the kernel parameters I provide the Harvester kernel for boot are wrong. My current GRUB entry is the following: menuentry "Harvester Installer" { insmod xfs set isofile="/harvester-v1.2.0-amd64.iso" loopback loop (hd1,msdos1)$isofile linux (loop)/boot/kernel cdroot root=live:/dev/nvme1n1 rd.live.dir=/ rd.live.squashimg=rootfs.squashfs console=tty1 console=ttyS0 rd.cos.disable net.ifnames=1 initrd (loop)/boot/initrd } The configuration is likely at least wrong for this part: root=live:/dev/nvme1n1 I tried quit a lot of different options. But have nothing found yet which worked. Maybe you have an idea how to set up a GRUB config which works?

Hi @incalculable-painting-97670, For your grub configuration:

menuentry "Harvester Installer" {
insmod xfs
set isofile="/harvester-v1.2.0-amd64.iso"
loopback loop (hd1,msdos1)$isofile
linux (loop)/boot/kernel cdroot root=live:/dev/nvme1n1 rd.live.dir=/ rd.live.squashimg=rootfs.squashfs console=tty1 console=ttyS0 rd.cos.disable net.ifnames=1
initrd (loop)/boot/initrd
}

The

root

means the device of your ISO simulation instead of the target you would like to install. > Do you know if Harvester does internal configurations based on the network config which explicitely would have to be changed? Or is there maybe a way that I could install harvester without requiring a serial console? I mean just provide a config file, start Harvester installation and wait till it reboots? Yes, you could use iPXE for installation, please refer to https://docs.harvesterhci.io/v1.2/install/pxe-boot-install to check the config.yaml for non-interactive installation. > I found a more detailed description from a guy trying to install Proxmox in a similar way here > https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/install-pve-pbs-from-iso-on-hetzner-without-kvm-tutorial.94464/ > Are you aware of someone trying this with Harvester yet? AFAIK, I do not know if someone tried the above way to install Harvester. Looks it very similar to your first approach. Did you try again for it?

Hello Vicente, I al trying since 3 days already, without success 😞 PXE unfortunately would require me to have a folder in the subnet where I could place the installation routines. Unfortunately an FTP folder or similar is not offered by Hetzner. I in the meantime gave up on the issue. I will now try to get the installation running on a local machine and than pay for a KVM terminal to get it onto the machine. Currently I am looking into how I could set up harvester to only accept ssh connections with certificates, i.e. without password. Is my assumption right, that this is not possible from the installer? I cannot leave the password fields blank. Is this maybe possible to do in a later step. The entire principle behind the microos readonly filesystem is not clear to me yet. I mean how and if I can change OS configuration files and make changes persistant.

Back in the grub1 days, you could point grub to the vmlinuz and initrd from a netboot installer and install Linux without an iso or PXE, even so far as chain loading it from windows. I wrote a blog post about it way back - https://scottawilliams.com/blog/2011/05/30/how-to-install-linux-without-a-cd-or-usb-stick/ Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to accomplish this with grub2. It seems theoretically possible, but I've never connected the dots on it.

Hello Scott, thank you very much for the directions. I now ordered a kvm console. Spent 4 days now wihtout success to install it in another way. I also tried to install binaries only. The basic problem is, that I do not have access to a serial console. I can only get one when running the installer in qemu, and this messes up the network configuration for the installer due to virtualization. To my understanding it would need to be required to not just install the binaries, but also to be able to add a config file to the installed binaries which provides all required configuration. Hence, currently there is still interaction via terminal required to configure the installed binaries for installation. The only thing which to my understanding would work is, Boot into recovery mode, install binaries with configuration, reboot and wait till harvester provides the webui and ssl. However, to my understanding this currently does not work. Maybe a nice addon for the Harvester future.