ammmze/README.md

## README.md

      
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              README.md
            
          
    Installing Talos on VPS via Rescue mode

Most VPS solutions have a pretty limited selection of OS's that are available to install on your VPS.
Talos is unlikely to be one of the options. While some VPS providers may allow you to open a ticket
and receive help installing from a custom ISO, I didn't want to do that. I wanted a way to self-serve
and get this installed. This took a bit of digging to learn some of these tools a bit more than I had
in the past, but I think this is in a good place.
I haven't permanently put these nodes in my cluster yet, but did verify that I could get an installation done successfully.
FYI, this was tested on inexpensive (3 core, 3 Gi ram, 50Gi disk) VPS instances from Racknerd.

Enable rescue mode
SSH into rescue instance
Run the following shell commands in the setup-talos-disk.sh (I executed them individually because the rescue image had basically nothing to download the script or anything more convenient)
Exit rescue mode
Apply your talos config (talosctl apply-config --insecure --file /path/to/talos.yaml -n host-or-ip-for-node)

Warning
The script currently assumes a lot of things with the main things like:

The rescue linux instance is debian stretch
THE VPS instance disk is /dev/vda

Use at your own risk!


## setup-talos-disk.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -e

# Change sources.list ... existing one no longer works
# TODO: maybe look for the old broken value first instead of blindly replacing it
echo "deb http://archive.debian.org/debian stretch main contrib non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list

# Install stuff ...
# wget to download iso
# parted to do partition stuff ... maybe could use fdisk, but i didn't want to try to figure out noninteractive
# grub2 so we can install current version ... needed to be able to boot from iso
apt update && DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt install -y wget parted grub2

# Wipe existing partition table
wipefs -a /dev/vda

# Create small new partition table with a ~1Gi partition...we don't need much space
parted /dev/vda mklabel msdos
parted /dev/vda mkpart primary ext4 1MB 1024MB
mkfs -F -t ext4 /dev/vda1

# Mount new partion
mount /dev/vda1 /mnt

# Create boot directory
mkdir /mnt/boot

# Download the iso
# TODO: use latest? or keep explicit
wget -O /mnt/boot/talos.iso https://github.com/siderolabs/talos/releases/download/v1.6.5/metal-amd64.iso

# Install grub
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/vda

# TODO: maybe mount the iso and copy the grub.cfg linux and
#       initrd lines (but add the "(loop)" bit to
#       tell it to use those files from the loopback
# mkdir -p /iso
# mount -o loop /mnt/boot/talos.iso /iso

# Add grub cfg that boots loads iso to loopback
# which should leave the actual device available
# to install Talos when you apply config.
cat > /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg << "EOF"
set default=0
set timeout=3

insmod all_video

terminal_input console
terminal_output console

menuentry "Talos" {
    insmod ext2
    set isofile="/boot/talos.iso"
    loopback loop (hd0,1)$isofile
    linux (loop)/boot/vmlinuz talos.platform=metal console=ttyS0 console=tty0 init_on_alloc=1 slab_nomerge pti=on consoleblank=0 nvme_core.io_timeout=4294967295 printk.devkmsg=on ima_template=ima-ng ima_appraise=fix ima_hash=sha512
    initrd (loop)/boot/initramfs.xz
}
EOF

# Unmount
umount /mnt
	#!/usr/bin/env bash

	set -e

	# Change sources.list ... existing one no longer works
	# TODO: maybe look for the old broken value first instead of blindly replacing it
	echo "deb http://archive.debian.org/debian stretch main contrib non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list

	# Install stuff ...
	# wget to download iso
	# parted to do partition stuff ... maybe could use fdisk, but i didn't want to try to figure out noninteractive
	# grub2 so we can install current version ... needed to be able to boot from iso
	apt update && DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt install -y wget parted grub2

	# Wipe existing partition table
	wipefs -a /dev/vda

	# Create small new partition table with a ~1Gi partition...we don't need much space
	parted /dev/vda mklabel msdos
	parted /dev/vda mkpart primary ext4 1MB 1024MB
	mkfs -F -t ext4 /dev/vda1

	# Mount new partion
	mount /dev/vda1 /mnt

	# Create boot directory
	mkdir /mnt/boot

	# Download the iso
	# TODO: use latest? or keep explicit
	wget -O /mnt/boot/talos.iso https://github.com/siderolabs/talos/releases/download/v1.6.5/metal-amd64.iso

	# Install grub
	grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/vda

	# TODO: maybe mount the iso and copy the grub.cfg linux and
	# initrd lines (but add the "(loop)" bit to
	# tell it to use those files from the loopback
	# mkdir -p /iso
	# mount -o loop /mnt/boot/talos.iso /iso

	# Add grub cfg that boots loads iso to loopback
	# which should leave the actual device available
	# to install Talos when you apply config.
	cat > /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg << "EOF"
	set default=0
	set timeout=3

	insmod all_video

	terminal_input console
	terminal_output console

	menuentry "Talos" {
	insmod ext2
	set isofile="/boot/talos.iso"
	loopback loop (hd0,1)$isofile
	linux (loop)/boot/vmlinuz talos.platform=metal console=ttyS0 console=tty0 init_on_alloc=1 slab_nomerge pti=on consoleblank=0 nvme_core.io_timeout=4294967295 printk.devkmsg=on ima_template=ima-ng ima_appraise=fix ima_hash=sha512
	initrd (loop)/boot/initramfs.xz
	}
	EOF

	# Unmount
	umount /mnt