[ale] Alright, it's time to move on from Linode

[Michael Trausch]

Aww, Steve. And here, I thought you were the king of the low level things!

Well, there are a few options in order of descending preference:

• Use kexec to boot into a kernel with initramfs built-in and which starts the installer environment with listening SSH daemon.
• Install your system locally in a KVM node with a disk configuration that matches the target. Then upload a bootstrap program to the target's tmpfs. The bootstrap program kills all processes, performs hostile takeover of PID 1 (disable MAC frameworks!), eliminates all open files, and then sucks the filesystem or tape image via the network. It reboots when finished. This works even if target uses Xen or its own kernel (as long as it's not too old) because the Linux kernel is just that flexible. 
• Worst case, use target pre installed system as bootstrap and run your things inside of a container with your preferred and normalized environment. 

Yeah it is inconvenient. But cmon. This isn't a black box. The solution is annoying but neither difficult or impossible. Just takes up a little time.

Most of the time the second solution offers the most portability. But providers which use kexec enabled kernels are becoming more popular over time, and so that method will eventually be the best. It is preferred if possible because of the lowered complexity. It's how you use the Linux kernel as a fancy boot loader, too; wanna netboot from your on-premise network from a cloud system? It can be done... Might not be wise or efficient though. Just use kexec to boot a kernel with preconfigured boot loader payload in initramfs, and you're off to the races.

Since you've written your own init systems and the like and are *such* an expert there, I'll leave the actual exercise of the C code to you. If you're half as good as you think you are, you should have a solution working and coded within about a week's worth of time, including testing. If you're as good as you think you are, cut that in half. 

It's not exactly managing the New Horizons spacecraft or anything anywhere near as complex as that. It's really just another thing you can do with the system calls provided...

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 8, 2016, at 1:02 PM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> 
> Eeeeuuuuuu: "Currently we do not support the importing of or mounting
> of ISOs in the panel."
> 
> If you can't get an ISO mounted, how the hell can you ever do a chroot
> install?
> 
> I'm copying one of my buddies who uses DigitalOcean.