Table of Contents
In addition to the traditional installation, there is also the possibility of providing UCS via an appliance image. These appliance images can be used both for simple commissioning in a virtualization solution such as VMware and for providing a cloud instance.
Appliances can be created with minimal effort. This is described in Chapter 2.
Whilst some of the settings can be preconfigured globally in the image, it is still necessary for the end user to make final adjustments to the configuration, e.g., to set the computer name or the domain used. For this reason, a basic system is installed for the appliance image and a component set up, which then allows the end user to finalize the configuration. Alternatively, the configuration can also be performed automatically without user interaction. This is described in Section 2.3.
The interactive configuration can be performed in two ways:
In the scope of the initial configuration, the user can change the following settings in the default setting:
This article describes how to set up an appliance based on UCS 4.3. This type of appliance can also be used to provide preconfigured instances as a cloud service provider. The creation of images for typical virtualization solutions is another possible application scenario, see Section 2.2.3.
The basic installation is performed using the standard UCS installer. Further information on the individual options can be found in the UCS manual. The installation should be performed in a virtualization solution. In this example, the installation is performed in UVMM. A qcow2 image should be selected for the hard drive for the virtual machine. Qcow2 images can be converted to different virtualization formats such as VirtualBox or VMware using a tool provided by Univention, see Section 2.2.3.
The following settings are configured for the basic image:
Once the basic installation is complete, a dialogue is shown in which you can select whether to create a new UCS domain or join an existing domain. To create the appliance, Control+Q must be pressed at this point to interrupt the process. The installation continues for a short period of time, during which the message appears and the systems then restarts.
The installation of the basic image is now complete. Following a reboot, the user of the appliance is shown the dialogue for adjusting the configuration, see Chapter 1.
In most cases, the appliance needs to be preconfigured with a certain selection of software. The installation is usually performed via the Univention App Center, which, however, is not yet available at this point in time. The installation is thus performed via the command line. UCS standard components can be installed using the corresponding package names, e.g.
univention-install univention-printserver
Packages from the Univention App Center are installed with the command
univention-add-app once a valid license is available.
The ID of an application can be retrieved with the command
univention-add-app --list:
univention-add-app -l APPID
The system now needs to be shut down cleanly without filesystems still being mounted.
The qcow2 image (i.e., the hard drive of the virtual machine) is now copied. If the
default storage pool of UVMM was used, the image is stored in the
directory /var/lib/libvirt/images/.
Additional steps are required if the image is to be used in Amazon EC2 (see Section 2.2.1), OpenStack (see Section 2.2.2) or as a VMware / VirtualBox appliance (see Section 2.2.3).
The following adjustments need to be made for an image that is to be used in Amazon EC2.
Amazon EC2 uses a PyGrub version which can only read the data format from GRUB 1 (menu.lst),
whilst UCS uses GRUB 2 as the bootloader. The following Univention Configuration Registry variables can be
used to generate the GRUB configuration in this format additionally. The bootloader
configuration is also adapted:
DEV='/dev/xvda' GRUB='(hd0)'
grub-mkdevicemap ||
echo "${GRUB} ${DEV}" >/boot/grub/device.map
append="$(ucr get grub/append |
sed -re "s|/dev/sda|${DEV}|g;s|(no)?splash||g")"
xargs -d'\n' ucr set <<__UCR__
grub/append=${append}
grub/boot=${DEV}
grub/root=${DEV}1
grub/grub1root=${GRUB}
grub/bootsplash=no
grub/quiet=no
__UCR__
update-initramfs -uk all
update-grub
univention-grub-generate-menu-lst
The initial login to the EC2 instance is performed via a SSH host key. To prevent SSH logins from occurring with the default root password of the standard image during commissioning of the instance, the initial root password is removed. The following Univention Configuration Registry variable configures this start mode:
usermod -p \* root ucr set server/amazon=true
The name server should be set; in this example to OpenDNS. Additionally, the timeout when
waiting for a DHCP request answer is lowered.
ucr set nameserver1=208.67.222.222 dns/forwarder1=208.67.222.222 ucr unset nameserver2 nameserver3 ucr unset dns/forwarder2 dns/forwarder3 ucr set interfaces/eth0/type=dhcp dhclient/options/timeout=12
The provisioning for OpenStack images occurs via Cloud-Init (see Section 2.3.2). Cloud-Init is a standardized solution for configuration of an image. Cloud-Init checks a range of data sources for an existing configuration. The univention-cloud-init package must be installed to prepare an image for provisioning via Cloud-Init:
univention-install univention-cloud-init
The local Firefox session should not be started when running as an OpenStack instance.
ucr set system/setup/boot/start=false
The initial login to the OpenStack instance is performed via a SSH host key. To prevent SSH logins from occurring with the default root password of the standard image during commissioning of the instance, the initial root password is removed.
usermod -p \* root
Virtualization images for VirtualBox, VMware Player and VMware ESX can also be created on the basis of the qcow2 images above. To this end, Univention offers a tool, which can be installed via the generate-appliance package (the integration in UCS 4.3 can be followed via Bug 37137).
The generate_appliance tool must be started and the qcow2
image selected with the parameter -s:
generate_appliance -s appliance.qcow2
The virtual machine is assigned one CPU and a gigabyte of RAM as standard. If the appliance
has a higher storage or CPU power requirement, the parameter -m can be
used to specify a different quantity of RAM in megabytes and -c can be
used to assign a different number of CPUs.
The parameters --vendor and --product can be used
to specify a vendor and product name.
In the default setting, three different virtualization images are generated from the qcow2 image. The generation for a type can be suppressed using the respectively given option:
--no-vmware
--no-ova-virtualbox
--no-ova-esxi
Instead of an interactive configuration of the appliance by the user, it can also be performed automatically. The automatic configuration can either be performed via cloud-init (a general tool for the provision of cloud images) or a Univention appliance mode profile file.
Automatic configuration with the UCS appliance mode requires creating a profile file
/var/cache/univention-system-setup/profile. Example configuration:
hostname="ucs" domainname="testdom.local" windows/domain="TESTDOM" ldap/base="dc=testdom,dc=local" root_password="univention" locale/default="de_DE.UTF-8:UTF-8" components="univention-s4-connector univention-samba4 univention-nagios-server" packages_install="univention-s4-connector univention-samba4 univention-nagios-server" packages_remove="" server/role="domaincontroller_master" interfaces/eth0/type="" interfaces/eth0/address="192.0.2.2" interfaces/eth0/netmask="255.0.0.0" interfaces/eth0/network="10.0.0.0" interfaces/eth0/broadcast="10.255.255.255" dns/forwarder1="192.0.2.2" gateway="192.0.2.1"
If interfaces/eth0/type is set to dynamic, DHCP is
used for the network configuration.
Then the /usr/lib/univention-system-setup/scripts/setup-join.sh tool
needs to be run once. Then Apache and the UMC server need to be restarted:
invoke-rc.d apache2 restart invoke-rc.d univention-management-console-server restart
Cloud-Init works on a configuration file in the cloud configuration format. The configuration file is provided by the respective cloud service; the type of provision differs from cloud solution to cloud solution. It is currently only possible to provide a master domain controller.
The configuration file may be adapted for different scenarios. To setup a domain,
the ucs_setup section is required. Note that the supplied
ldap_base is used in other configuration sections as well.
The following includes an example file with which a master domain controller can be provided. In addition, several files are generated on the system: the UCS license to be installed and a file with the apps to be installed from the Univention App Center. The license in this example is the default core edition license. More information about requesting a proper license can be found in Section 2.3.3.
Two example hook scripts are generated which are called after setup is finished:
One calls wget for a given URL, which could be used to signal an external service that the
provisioning of the instance is done. The other is an example udm
call to register an OpenStack connection in UVMM.
#cloud-config
#
ucs_setup:
hostname: myucsmaster
domainname: ucs.local
windowsdomain: UCS
ldap_base: dc=ucs,dc=local
rootpassword: univention
defaultlocale: de_DE.UTF-8:UTF-8
components:
packages_install: univention-virtual-machine-manager-daemon
packages_remove:
write_files:
- content: |
dn: cn=admin,cn=license,cn=univention,dc=ucs,dc=local
objectClass: top
objectClass: univentionLicense
objectClass: univentionObject
univentionObjectType: settings/license
univentionLicenseEndDate: unlimited
univentionLicenseModule: admin
cn: admin
univentionLicenseBaseDN: UCS Core Edition
univentionLicenseUsers: unlimited
univentionLicenseServers: unlimited
univentionLicenseManagedClients: unlimited
univentionLicenseCorporateClients: unlimited
univentionLicenseVirtualDesktopUsers: 0
univentionLicenseVirtualDesktopClients: 0
univentionLicenseSupport: 0
univentionLicensePremiumSupport: 0
univentionLicenseVersion: 2
univentionLicenseType: UCS
univentionLicenseSignature: ZjofoUmITUqpyF5q+AfE1i6EwsKXGWYnkh3JLJH3/bXqvD26nG
aLa+cpcr6g9Stkx2Lslh1feGCpsdvowkA3T+SFtPHSX0Fds78QgyatoiFlA6mbbtMf3ABbMfW9Glt
IZBbxxDFD+hMO/7yOHwaFZM3xb1I2ToJ1D2+xvOxrZe2SCZd4KJIXpupnmJnAC/D4Y9iqHPytVPU3
QlI6zXnGU5q47RN/tdXLTpV7mHoiXRWh282TNOlnEiiQxwiQ4u2ghWE1x/EWY/CXvZm0PQcsFqGyB
v72WdEUOex1Yuf3BgZ7QfLOQ2XIv6KPKCyYqZqlSNp8Xk+IpKjDqL+aq0oyeg==
owner: root:root
path: /var/cache/univention-system-setup/license
permissions: '0400'
- content: |
simplesamlphp
adconnector
owner: root:root
path: /var/cache/univention-system-setup/installapps
permissions: '0400'
- content: |
#!/bin/sh
wget http://myURL/page?myparam=myValue
owner: root:root
path: /usr/lib/univention-system-setup/appliance-hooks.d/90_wget_url
permissions: '0755'
- content: |
#!/bin/sh
udm uvmm/cloudconnection create --ignore_exists \
--position="cn=CloudConnection,cn=Virtual Machine Manager,dc=ucs,dc=local" \
--set name="OpenStack" \
--set type="cn=OpenStack,cn=CloudType,cn=Virtual Machine Manager,dc=ucs,dc=local" \
--set includeUCSimages=0 \
--append parameter="username demouser" \
--append parameter="password password" \
--append parameter="cloudtype OpenStack" \
--append parameter="auth_url http://192.0.2.1:5000" \
--append parameter="auth_version 2.0_password" \
--append parameter="service_type compute" \
--append parameter="service_name nova" \
--append parameter="tenant demotenant" \
--append parameter="service_region regionOne"
invoke-rc.d univention-virtual-machine-manager-daemon restart
owner: root:root
path: /usr/lib/univention-system-setup/appliance-hooks.d/80_add_uvmm_connection
permissions: '0755'
The file with the apps to be installed contains a list of IDs of applications from the Univention App Center, see Section 2.2. The list in the example above installs the Univention AD Connector and the SAML integration on the provided master domain controller
In the default installation, a UCS installation has a core edition license. An updated license from Univention is required in order to use the App Center. For standard installations it is sent to the user by e-mail and then set up in the Univention Management Console.
Cloud service providers have the possibility of retrieving UCS licenses via an API, i.e., if a new instance is to be created for a customer, the license can be retrieved via the API and then installed in the provided instance directly.
Access to the license server requires a user name and a password. These can be requested
from Univention at <sales@univention.de>. In this document,
https://license.univention.de/shop/example/ is used as an example URL for the
license server.
The licenses are retrieved via HTTPS from the Univention license server
license.univention.de. The retrieval can be performed completely with
wget.
Firstly, a session with the license server must be opened, in this case with the user name
univention and the password secret as an
example. It is also possible to request more than one license in one session.
wget --keep-session-cookies --save-cookies cookie.db --load-cookies \ cookie.db --post-data='username=univention&password=secret' \ https://license.univention.de/shop/example/
A license can also be ordered with a POST request via wget. Please note that special
characters such as blank spaces must be escaped in URL-encoded syntax, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding for details.
wget --keep-session-cookies --save-cookies cookie.db --load-cookies cookie.db \ --post-data='kundeEmail=customer@example&'\ 'kundeUnternehmen=New%20Customern&'\ 'EndDate=27.11.2015&'\ 'BaseDN=dc%3Ddrei%2Cdc%3Dzwei%2Cdc%3Dtest&'\ 'Servers=0&'\ 'Support=0&'\ 'PremiumSupport=0&'\ 'Users=100&'\ 'ManagedClients=0&'\ 'CorporateClients=0&'\ 'VirtualDesktopUsers=0&'\ 'VirtualDesktopClients=0&'\ 'Type=UCS' \ https://license.univention.de/shop/example/order
If the order is successful, the return code 202 is returned. The HTML data includes the tag
orderid, which identifies the order number of a successful order:
... <span id="orderid">21</span> ...
If the order fails, a return code 4xx is returned and the details tag
includes additional information, e.g.:
... <span id="details">Not a valid date: u'27.11.201'</span> ...
Should it not be possible to process an order due to a server error, 5xx is output as the return code. The order can then be repeated at a later point in time.
Following ordering of a license, it takes a few seconds before the license is
generated. It can then be retrieved in LDIF format using the order number. If the request
above returns e.g. the order number 465, the file name is thus 465.ldif.
The request specified below waits for the availability of the license for up to sixty seconds:
wget --keep-session-cookies --save-cookies cookie.db --load-cookies cookie.db \ https://license.univention.de/shop/example/orders/465.ldif
In addition to the interactive installation described in the [ucs-manual], a profile-based installation of UCS is also possible. With this method, the settings for the Debian Installer and Univention System Setup are specified in a pre-seed file.
The Debian Installer consists of a number of special-purpose components to perform each installation task. Each component performs its task, asking the user questions as necessary to do its job. The questions themselves are given priorities, and the priority of questions to be asked is set when the installer is started.
When a default installation is performed, only essential (priority=high) questions will be asked.
This results in a highly automated installation process with little user interaction.
If there is a problem, the user will see an error screen, and the installer menu may be shown in order to select some alternative action.
Serious error notifications are set to priority=critical so the user will always be notified.
Power users may be more comfortable with a menu-driven interface, where each step is controlled by the user rather than the installer performing each step automatically in sequence.
To use the installer in a manual, menu-driven way, add the boot argument priority=medium.
If your hardware requires you to pass options to kernel modules as they are installed, you will need to start the installer in “expert” mode.
This can be done by adding the boot argument priority=low.
Depending on the selected priority the installer will ask more or less questions.
The installer will either use internal default values or the values from the profile.
To perform the installation fully unattended all required answers must be provided through the installation profile.
Therefore priority=critical should be specified under for UCS systems using the profile from Section 3.2.
An installation profile is a text file which can be edited with any editor.
The file must use the UTF-8 character encoding.
Empty lines and lines starting with a hash character (#) are ignored.
All other lines should follow the four column layout required by debconf, which is fully described in [d-i]:
# Comment <owner> <question name> <question type> <value>
The owner of most questions will be d-i, which is the Debian Installer.
The question type depends on the questions and can be boolean, string or select.
Any questions not answered by the pre-seed file is asked interactively and will prevent an unattended installation.
A template file is provided as /usr/share/doc/univention-net-installer/examples/TEMPLATE[1].
It contains the minimum required settings to perform a fully automatic installation of a member server with no additional software.
It will use the German keyboard layout and language settings.
It will re-partition the hard-disk without asking any questions and will use LVM to manage the disk space.
No additional software will be installed.
# # This file overwrites /proc/cmdline overwrites preseed.cfg in the InitRamFs! # # # The following options must be set through the PXE configuration ❶ # # Delay asking for locale and keyboard layout after pre-seeding via network #d-i auto-install/enable boolean true # Only ask for critical questions #d-i debconf/priority select critical # Disable graphical installer #d-i debian-installer/framebuffer boolean false # no live installer d-i live-installer/enable boolean false # # Use interfaces with link # d-i netcfg/dhcp_timeout string 60 # # Use dummy hostname and domain # d-i netcfg/get_hostname string unassigned-hostname d-i netcfg/get_domain string unassigned-domain krb5-config krb5-config/default_realm string UNASSIGNED-REALM krb5-config krb5-config/kerberos_servers string localhost krb5-config krb5-config/admin_server string localhost # # Select German as default locale and for keyboard layout ❷ # d-i debian-installer/locale string de_DE.UTF-8 d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select de(nodeadkeys) #d-i keyboard-configuration/modelcode string pc105 d-i ucr/xorg/keyboard/options/XkbModel string pc105 #d-i keyboard-configuration/layoutcode string de d-i ucr/xorg/keyboard/options/XkbLayout string de #d-i keyboard-configuration/variantcode string nodeadkeys d-i ucr/xorg/keyboard/options/XkbVariant string nodeadkeys #d-i keyboard-configuration/optionscode string d-i ucr/xorg/keyboard/options/XkbOptions string #d-i debian-installer/keymap select de-latin1-nodeadkeys # # Configure local repository server # d-i debian-installer/allow_unauthenticated boolean true d-i mirror/country string manual d-i mirror/protocol select http d-i mirror/http/proxy string # The host name of the repository server is filled through the PXE configuration generated by UDM #d-i mirror/http/hostname string ... ❸ d-i mirror/http/directory string /univention-repository/4.4/maintained/4.4-8 ❹ d-i mirror/codename string ucs448 d-i mirror/suite string ucs448 d-i mirror/udeb/suite string ucs448 # # Disable password for user 'root' # d-i passwd/root-login boolean true # Alternative: printf "secret" | mkpasswd -s -m sha-512 d-i passwd/root-password-crypted string * ❺ d-i passwd/make-user boolean false # # Partition hard disk: Use "lvm" and one big "/" partition ❻ # # Choices: lvm crypto regular d-i partman-auto/method string lvm # Choices: atomic home multi d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe string atomic d-i partman-auto/init_automatically_partition select 60some_device_lvm d-i partman-auto/init_automatically_partition seen false d-i partman-auto-lvm/new_vg_name string vg_ucs d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true d-i partman-lvm/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true d-i partman-partitioning/confirm_write_new_label boolean true d-i partman/choose_partition select finish d-i partman/confirm boolean true d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true # Pre-select the standard UCS kernel #d-i base-installer/kernel/image string linux-image-%(kernel_version)s d-i base-installer/includes string less d-i base-installer/debootstrap_script string /usr/share/debootstrap/scripts/sid # # Only minimal install # d-i apt-setup/use_mirror boolean false d-i apt-setup/no_mirror boolean true d-i apt-setup/services-select multiselect none d-i apt-setup/cdrom/set-first boolean false tasksel tasksel/first multiselect none d-i pkgsel/include string univention-system-setup-boot univention-management-console-web-server univention-management-console-module-setup univention-kernel-image openssh-server postfix postfix/main_mailer_type string No configuration openssh-server ssh/disable_cr_auth boolean false d-i ucf/changeprompt select keep_current d-i pkgsel/upgrade select none popularity-contest popularity-contest/participate boolean false # # Install GRUB in MBR by default on new systems # d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean true d-i grub-installer/bootdev string default grub-pc grub-pc/install_devices multiselect grub-pc grub-pc/install_devices_empty boolean true # # After installation # d-i finish-install/reboot_in_progress note d-i cdrom-detect/eject boolean true # # Disable starting "Univention System Setup Boot" ❼ # d-i ucr/system/setup/boot/start string false # # Univention System Setup profile # #univention-system-setup-boot uss/root_password string univention-system-setup-boot uss/components string univention-system-setup-boot uss/packages_install string univention-system-setup-boot uss/packages_remove string # Choices: domaincontroller_master domaincontroller_backup domaincontroller_slave memberserver base univention-system-setup-boot uss/server/role string memberserver #univention-system-setup-boot uss/ldap/base string dc=example,dc=com
These settings must be configured as PXE command line parameters in . They are listed here for reference only and cannot be changed through this file:
The long parameter names can be abbreviated as | |
If the locale settings are not consistent, the installer will ask interactively for corrections.
The keyboard related settings must be configured through Univention Configuration Registry - the questions starting with | |
The location of the local repository is filled in through the PXE configuration.
By default the value of the Univention Configuration Registry variable | |
These directory and release names must be kept in sync to select the right UCS release.
This example consistently uses UCS-4.4-8
For use with the public repository remove the prefix | |
By default no password is set, which will prevent logging in.
It should be replaced by an encrypted password, which can be used by running a command like | |
By default all existing partitions will be wiped without asking any question!
They will be replaced by a single file system for | |
This sections contains the UCS specific settings, which are normally configured through Univention System Setup.
For an unattended installation the graphical installer is disabled.
All other values starting with |
The following profile variables can be used to specify basic properties of the computer such as the computer name, its role within the UCS domain and the name of the domain the computer should join.
Table 3.1. Profile variables - System properties
| Name | Function |
|---|---|
server/role |
The system role.
You may choose from domaincontroller_master, domaincontroller_backup, domaincontroller_slave, memberserver and base.
The properties of the system roles are described in the domain services chapter of the [ucs-manual].
|
hostname |
The computer name.
The name must only contain the letters a to z in lowercase, the figures 0 to 9 and hyphens.
Although underscore are allowed as well, they should not be used as they are not supported everywhere.
The name must begin with a letter.
|
domainname | The name of the DNS domain in which the computer is joined. |
windows/domain | The name of the NetBIOS domain used by Samba. This variable should only by defined for the system role master domain controller. |
locales | Localization packages to be installed (locales). If more than one locale is specified, the locales are separated by blank spaces. |
locale/default |
The standard locale for the computer, e.g. en_GB.UTF-8:UTF-8.
More information on system locales can be found at [locales].
|
country, keymap |
The keyboard layout for the computer, specified in the form of an X11
keymap entry, e.g. de-latin1.
|
timezone |
The time zone for the computer, e.g. Europe/Berlin.
A complete list of possible configuration options is shown in the Basic settings module of the Univention Management Console.
|
root_password | The password for the root user for this computer. On a master domain controller, this password is also used for the Administrator's password. |
Automatically joining the computer into the domain is currently not supported for security reasons.
Table 3.2. Profile variables - LDAP settings and domain joins
| Name | Function |
|---|---|
start/join |
As standard, all computers apart from the base system and master domain controller attempt to join the UCS domain in the course of the installation.
If this parameter is set to false, the automatic domain join is deactivated.
|
ldap/base |
The base DN of the LDAP domain.
In general, the base DN dc=example,dc=com is used in a domain example.com.
This variable is only evaluated on the system role master domain controller.
|
By default automatically installed systems use DHCP. The following profile variables can be used to specify the network configuration of the computer.
General information on the network configuration and the use of the name servers can be found in Chapter Network configuration of the [ucs-manual].
The settings for network cards must be performed completely.
It is not possible to leave individual settings blank.
For example, if there is no IP address for the device eth0 in the profile, in addition to the IP address, the interfaces/eth0/netmask will also be requested.
Table 3.3. Profile variables - Network configuration
| Name | Function |
|---|---|
interfaces/eth |
If this parameter is set to dynamic or dhcp, the network interface eth procures its network configuration via DHCP.
The settings of interfaces/eth, interfaces/eth, interfaces/eth, interfaces/eth, nameserver and gateway then become optional, but can still be used to over-write the configuration provided by DHCP.
If no DHCP offer is received, a random IP address from the link-local network 169.254. is used.
For manual configuration this parameter must be set to static.
|
interfaces/eth |
The IPv4 address of the physical network interface eth.
|
interfaces/eth |
The network mask of the subnetwork from which the IPv4 address of eth originates.
|
gateway | The IPv4 address of the gateway which the computer should use as standard. Alternatively, one can specify the computer name or the FQDN that can be resolved into the IP address. |
interfaces/eth |
An IPv6 address of the physical network interface eth in static configuration.
Multiple addresses can be assigned by using different name prefixes.
|
interfaces/eth |
The prefix length of the IPv6 address of the physical network interface eth in static configuration.
|
ipv6/gateway | The IPv6 address of the gateway which the computer should use as standard. It is not obligatory to enter a gateway for IPv6, but recommended. An IPv6 gateway configured here has preference over router advertisements, which might otherwise be able to change the route. |
interfaces/eth |
If this setting is set to yes, the stateless address auto-configuration (SLAAC) is used.
In this, the IP address is assigned from the routers of the local network segment.
If the variable is set to no, the configuration is performed statically via interfaces/eth and interfaces/eth (see there).
|
nameserver1, nameserver2, nameserver3 | The IP address of the name server which should perform the name resolution. It is possible to specify up to three name servers. |
dns/forwarder1, dns/forwarder2, dns/forwarder3 | The IP address of the name server intended to serve as the forwarder for a locally installed DNS service. It is possible to specify up to three forwarders. |
proxy/http |
The URL of a proxy server to be used when downloading accessing the Internet.
The specified URL is adopted in the Univention Configuration Registry variables proxy/http and proxy/ftp.
This setting is only required if packages are to be installed which download additional packages from external web servers; e.g., the installation program for the Flash plugin.
Example: |
The following profile variables refer to software packages which are to be installed on the computer.
Table 3.4. Profile variables - Software selection
| Name | Function |
|---|---|
packages_install | This settings names packages which are additionally installed. If more than one package is specified, the packages are separated by blank spaces. |
packages_remove | This settings names packages which should be removed. If more than one package is specified, the packages are separated by blank spaces. |
A SSL certification infrastructure is set up during installation of a master domain controller. If no settings are configured, automatic names are given for the certificate.
Table 3.5. Profile variables - SSL
| Name | Function |
|---|---|
ssl/country | The ISO country code of the certification body appearing in the certificate (root CA), specified with two capital letters. |
ssl/state | The region, county or province that appears in the certificate of the root CA. |
ssl/locality | Place appearing in the certificate of the root CA. |
ssl/organization | Name of the organization that appears in the certificate of the root CA. |
ssl/organizationalunit | Name of the organizational unit or department of the organization that appears in the certificate of the root CA. |
ssl/email | E-mail address that appears in the certificate of the root CA. |
Network-based, profile-based installations via PXE are performed with the Univention Net Installer, which can be set up using the package univention-net-installer. In addition, DHCP, TFTP and WWW servers are required. If the DHCP server and the PXE server of the Univention Net Installer are operated on separate systems, the PXE server must be assigned via a DHCP boot policy.
The installation process consists of multiple steps, which contact different services and servers:
pxelinux.0).
tftp protocol from the PXE server.
The boot loader scans the server for the client configuration file in pxelinux.cfg/.
The referenced Linux kernel (linux) and initial RAM disk file (initrd.gz) are then downloaded.
Those names can be changed through the Univention Configuration Registry variables pxe/installer/kernel and pxe/installer/initrd[2].
http.
The is configured in the computer entry in LDAP.
The file is fetch from the PXE server by default, but the prefix can be overwritten through the Univention Configuration Registry variable pxe/installer/profiles.
As an alternative the name can also be specified as an absolute URL.
repository/online/server on the PXE server.
Univention Net Installer supports both the interactive and profile-based installation. Any questions not answered in the pre-seed file forces the installer to interactive mode.
Profiles should be copied into the directory /var/lib/univention-client-boot/preseed/ on the PXE server, which is accessible through http://.
HOST-NAME/univention-client-boot/preseed/
Univention Net Installer can either directly use the repository server https://updates.software-univention.de/ or a local repository server. The later one is advisable as it reduces the amount of data needing to be downloaded for each installation.
The local repository must be initialized using the DVD (image) of the targeted UCS release.
This is done by running the command univention-repository-create, which copies the corresponding PXE kernel and installer to /var/lib/univention-client-boot/installer/.
release/
It is safe to run univention-repository-create again, which is for example required to update the installer to a newer version of UCS.
For more information on local repositories see the software deployment chapter of the [ucs-manual].
Afterwards the repository must be updated at least once using the command univention-repository-update net.
This is required as the DVD does not contain the Release files and their cryptographic signatures.
The command will download all previous UCS minor and patch-level releases of the same major branch.
Each minor release requires several gigabytes of storage space in /var/lib/univention-repository/.
Even more space is required if the section unmaintained is enabled!
Verify the Univention Configuration Registry variable repository/mirror/recreate_packages is set to no.
Otherwise the Packages files will be re-built, which invalidates the cryptographic signatures.
Locally re-built index files will also have different package priorities as the overwrite information is not publicly available.
Even when the public repository server https://updates.software-univention.de/ is used, some services and files must be available inside the local network.
At minimum this includes the DHCP service, which assigns the client its IP address and tells it to continue fetching files from the next server.
Historically this had to be a TFTP server, but nowadays this also can be any HTTP server.
This has the benefit that HTTP is faster, more reliable and also works over the Internet.
Procedure 3.1. Setup network installation using public repository
Install the HTTP capable boot loader lpxelinux.0
univention-install univention-dhcp univention-net-installer ln -s /usr/lib/PXELINUX/lpxelinux.0 \ /var/lib/univention-client-boot/
Setup the DHCP Boot policy to use lpxelinux.0.
Depending on the capabilities of the network card boot code the boot loader can either be fetched over the HTTP or TFTP protocol:
For HTTP configure the absolute URL as the boot filename:
HOST="$(hostname -f)" LDAP="$(ucr get ldap/base)" HTTP="http://$HOST/univention-client-boot/lpxelinux.0" udm policies/dhcp_boot modify \ --dn "cn=default-settings,cn=boot,cn=dhcp,cn=policies,$LDAP" \ --set boot_filename="$HTTP" \ --set boot_server=
The installer performs its own second DHCP request.
This again retrieves the DHCP option boot filename, which now contains the URL to the PXE loader.
The installer wrongly interprets this as the URL for the profile preseed, which breaks the installation.
Therefore the option needs to be overwritten when the installer performs this second query:
STMT='if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 3) = "d-i" { filename ""; }'
udm dhcp/subnet list |
sed -ne 's/^DN: //p' |
xargs -d '\n' -n1 udm dhcp/subnet modify \
--option options \
--append statements="$STMT" \
--dn
For TFTP change boot filename to point to lpxelinux.0:
HOST="$(hostname -f)" LDAP="$(ucr get ldap/base)" udm policies/dhcp_boot modify \ --dn "cn=default-settings,cn=boot,cn=dhcp,cn=policies,$LDAP" \ --set boot_filename='lpxelinux.0' \ --set boot_server="$HOST"
Configure the boot loader to load the Linux kernel and initial ram disk from the public repository server:
PXE='http://updates.software-univention.de/pxe' PXE="$PXE/4.4-8/amd64/gtk/debian-installer/amd64" ucr set \ pxe/installer/kernel="$PXE/linux" \ pxe/installer/initrd="$PXE/initrd.gz" \ pxe/installer/ipappend=3
In the profile file the settings for mirror/http/hostname and mirror/http/directory must be changed to use the public server and its layout:
d-i mirror/http/hostname string updates.software-univention.de ❶ d-i mirror/http/directory string /4.4/maintained/4.4-8 ❷
A computer to be installed via Univention Net Installer must firstly be registered in the computer management of the Univention Management Console. The following values must be set as a minimum:
The option must now be activated in the tab under .
The name of the installation profile relative to /var/lib/univention-client-boot/preseed/ can be entered under .
As an alternative any other http server can be used as well, in which case an absolute URL must be given.
Options entered under are passed on to the kernel in network-based installations, e.g., for the deactivation of ACPI during system start. This can also be used to specify other pre-seed variables on a host-by-host basis. To perform an installation fully unattended see the explanations for the installation profile for a list of required options.
A PXE configuration file is created for every computer object under /var/lib/univention-client-boot/pxelinux.cfg/.
Several Univention Configuration Registry variable exist on the PXE server, which can be used to further customize the PXE configuration.
Use ucr search ^pxe/ to get a list of them including a short description.
Those values will only be used when next a PXE configuration file is generated.
It must be verified that the boot order in BIOS of the system to be installed prefers a PXE network boot over hard disks or CD-ROMs.
On the next restart of the computer it will boot via PXE and is installed via the network.
By default the option needs to be reset manually after the installation has finished. Otherwise the computer will be reinstalled every time the host is booted! If the package univention-net-installer-daemon is installed on the server, the flag can be reset automatically.
[1]
The file may be stored compressed with the .gz extension.
Use gunzip to uncompress a copy of that file.
[2] Newer versions of the PXE boot loader support downloading through http, which can be faster and more reliable in certain environments. This can be enabled by specifying URLs starting with http:// as file names.
[ucs-manual] Univention GmbH. 2019. Univention Corporate Server - Manual for users and administrators. https://docs.software-univention.de/manual-4.4.html.
[locales] Debian Project. 2013. Locale - Debian Wiki. https://wiki.debian.org/Locale.
[d-i] Debian Project. 2017. Debian Installer - Automating the installation using pre-seeding.