Automatic system installer for Artix.
Please note that this project has been ABANDONED, but the code is available to fork and use (MIT license) as desired.
This project was started as a way to test the automated deployment of Artix Linux on university laboratory workstations. Bash shell scripting was used as the implementation language, which was a mistake in hindsight. However, the design of the installer made it easy to customize individual functions to match deployment conditions.
The installer script is generated from a set of smaller, more manageable Bash files. Once generated, the script is capable of packing arbitrary data into itself, including templates and configurations for performing installations. The basic premise was that the packed installer would be available as a single download from a server, so that it could be obtained with a single wget/curl operation from inside the installation environment. From there, the installation would have been completely automatic.
Support for fully encrypted systems and LVM was added, but support for software RAID was never completed. Changes to laboratory priorities, including a significant reduction in the total number of systems, made it unnecessary to complete this project.
At last check, this process was BROKEN with recent versions of Artix. However, the procedure would have been as follows:
Download an Artix base ISO from the Artix Linux Downloads page. Create a VM with a virtual hard disk of at least 20 GB in size.
On the host system, check out the git repo and run:
make serve
Inside the guest, run:
sudo su -
curl -o artiplunk http://10.0.2.2:8042/artiplunk
chmod +x artiplunk
./artiplunk -x simple > install.conf
Test the configuration by doing a dry run with:
./artiplunk -D install.conf
If the dry run (-D) succeeds, run the actual installation with:
./artiplunk -o install.conf
Inside the guest, run:
sudo su -
curl -o artiplunk http://10.0.2.2:8042/artiplunk
chmod +x artiplunk
./artiplunk --proper
./artiplunk -x annotated > install.conf
vim install.conf
./artiplunk -D install.conf
./artiplunk -o install.conf
Alternative starting points for the configuration may be found by running artiplunk -l example
Should the installation abort at any step, troubleshoot the problem. You can resume the installation from the failed step by running:
./artiplunk -o --resume
To re-run a previous step, edit /tmp/artiplunk/step, and change the step name to the step that is to be re-run. Note that, by default, the /tmp/artiplunk directory is removed at the end of a clean installation. The "-o" flag copies the installation log to /root on the newly installed system.
Once we can get an install working, the -O flag will copy Artiplunk, along with a packed configuration, to /root on the target system. This version of the script can be used to reinstall the target system in the future by running the built installer with the -P switch.
Run ./artiplunk --help for more documentation, although the help system is incomplete.