Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

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markokrajnc
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Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by markokrajnc »

Hi!

I would like to install Ubuntu as a GuestOS with VBoxManage unattended installation. I have managed to create vm, hdd, network adapter (including NAT port forwarding), etc. and I have also successfully installed the Ubuntu Server 16.04.5 LTS from DVD ISO file. The problem is, that SSH server is not installed by default and I can not connect to the VM with SSH (through port forwarding).

How can I tell the VBoxManage to install the Ubuntu OpenSSH Server package (which can be easily selected, when installation is driven by the user interactively)?

Thank you for your help!

Marko
socratis
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Re: Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by socratis »

markokrajnc wrote:How can I tell the VBoxManage to install the Ubuntu OpenSSH Server package
As far as I know, it's called "Unattended installation", not "Unattended configuration". VirtualBox can help you get it installed, not configured. You can configure some aspects, but not the user's background picture for example.

Take a look at ch. 8.42. VBoxManage unattended to see what you can or can't do.
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markokrajnc
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Re: Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by markokrajnc »

Thank you for your answer! I understand that the main purpose is installation and not configuration. SSH server however is so basic for VMs that it is very often part of installation (since configuration is made later over SSH connection).

According to "unattended templates" the Debian is installed with OpenSSL Server (see UnattendedTemplates/debian_preseed.cfg), but Ubuntu is installed without (see UnattendedTemplates/ubuntu_preseed.cfg).

It looks like I will copy and modify ubuntu_preseed.cfg to meet my needs...

Thank you!

Marko
socratis
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Re: Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by socratis »

markokrajnc wrote:According to "unattended templates" ...
Oh, that's interesting! Really interesting. Thank you Marko for "opening my eyes", I'll have to check out how these things work. I've seen the unattended option, I didn't realize that there were templates that came along with it.
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markokrajnc
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Re: Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by markokrajnc »

socratis wrote:I'll have to check out how these things work...
I am proposing a new parameter for VBoxManage unattended install (https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08. ... unattended):

--install-ssh-server, --no-install-ssh-server
Whether to install the SSH server. Not all guest OSes support this. (default: --no-install-ssh-server)


This would be very useful and could be implemented uniformly for all OSes which support SSH.

Regards,
Marko
socratis
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Re: Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by socratis »

Since you already have the template, do you want to have individual command line switches for individual packages? What if the unattended is a Windows install? Then what?

No, that's what the templates are for, methinks...
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markokrajnc
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Re: Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by markokrajnc »

I agree that having a switch for each individual package is a bad idea. I claim that SSH is different, because often the configuration is done over SSH connection, so SSH must be installed before configuration - this means during installation.

For unattended Windows install the Windows Remote Shell could be enabled (so maybe the naming --install-remote-shell, --no-install-remote-shell would be more appropriate).

For OSes which don't have remote shell nothing would happen - therefore I wrote "Not all guest OSes support this." - and a similar phrase is used in VirtualBox manual on Unattended Installation (https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08. ... unattended), because there are already other parameters which are not supported by all OSes...

Anyway: I have solved my issues with templates, but I can imagine this feature would be nice to have on a generic level (for all supported OSes), so users don't need to mess with templates for each OS they use...

And there is another issue: for some OSes the SSH is currently installed (like Debian) and for some it is not installed (like Ubuntu). And this new switch would eliminate such things...

Regards,
Marko
socratis
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Re: Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by socratis »

Thanks Marko for the summary. Moving to "Suggestions" from "Using VirtualBox".
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markokrajnc
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Re: Enabling SSH with Unattended Installation

Post by markokrajnc »

And Windows Server 2019 will come with OpenSSH Server and Client - info just released:

https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/ ... s-openssh/

Regards,
Marko
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