About the Installimage Script

The installimage script is an easy and fast method of installing various Linux distributions. It allows you to select the distribution, define drive partitioning, and configure software RAID and LVM with a user-friendly menu.

Running Installimage

1. Activate the Rescue System and boot into it.
2. Log in as root using the password provided.
3. Type installimage to start the script:

root@rescue ~ # installimage

The script will display a menu to select an OS image. After choosing, you can edit the configuration file using Midnight Commander (mcedit).

Before You Start

• Check for hardware RAID controllers and configure RAID as needed before using installimage.
• Stop active software RAIDs with:

mdadm --stop /dev/md/*

• Wipe partition tables with:

# For SATA drives:
wipefs -fa /dev/sd*
# For NVMe drives:
wipefs -fa /dev/nvme*n1

OS Choices

The script provides standard images of the latest Linux distributions. Advanced users can install older images or create custom OS images. Configuration guides are available for custom images.

Configuration Variables

• Drives: Select drives for installation. Drives not listed will remain untouched.
• SWRAID: Configure software RAID levels (0, 1, 5, 6, 10).
• Bootloader: Pre-configured GRUB is used.
• Hostname: Set the system hostname.
• Partitions: Customize partitions and file systems, including LVM.

Installation

1. Edit and save the configuration file using F10.
2. Syntax is checked automatically. If errors exist, you'll return to the editor.
3. Upon successful setup, reboot the system:

root@rescue ~ # reboot

Log in using the Rescue System password to access your new installation.

Particularities

Some distributions, such as Debian or Ubuntu, have specific behaviors:

• Random times for cron jobs in /etc/cron.d/mdadm.
• Use the "old" Rescue System for XFS partitions on certain Ubuntu versions.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why can't I create partitions larger than 2TiB? Use a GUID partition table (GPT) with GRUB2.
• What if the script shows errors? Re-run the script and check /root/debug.txt for details.
• What is the MySQL root password for LAMP? It's stored in /password.txt on LAMP images.