[Sn1F3rt]

Yes exactly @rudra. Like I said earlier this is more of a preventive measure for loss of data and easy restoration. It has hardly anything to do with a fresh OS installation TBH.

Of course, I'll need staff's help in this method to restore everything via mounting the ISO and booting from VNC, but yeah that is what this method is meant for.

I'm glad you're putting effort into developing such a script for users without a panel. Even if it's the most basic reinstallation, it'd be really helpful to all KVM users like myself. Thanks for your endeavour.

[deanhills]

The Linux flavour I am currently using is Ubuntu. The version is 16.04 LTS, which is a bit old, because I started using it on this VPS for more than 3 years and I am lazy updating it.    

And my system is very basic, so there is no spare / reserve space on harddisk for system recovery, no VNC access for emergency reboot to a live environment, no change in HDD partition scheme etc.

@rudra  Just a note here - although this won't affect your project - but maybe just good to know.

Not all of the VPS 9 KVM upgrades last year happened to equal standard.  The first two - Seattle and Chicago were the first ones to be upgraded by Virmach, and were done much slower and the result was excellent. There was no negative feedback.  Most of the other upgrades were done cookie cutter mass production style, probably because there were so many to do and Virmach must have been working to a deadline.  Again, this won't effect the project, but just to let you know the KVM upgrade of the last VPSs were not as easy and perfect as the first two. @tryp4vps for example has one of the better upgraded KVM VPSs - Chicago. Also possibly good to know is that the issues with Ubuntu were already there before the upgrade to KVM, i.e. Virmach seems to prefer CentOS.  We were for example unable to get Virmach to add the latest Ubuntu OS to the templates - even before the upgrade to KVM.  

What Soham says is true.  For Ubuntu to work flawlessly on VPS 9, it has to be loaded from an ISO image, but as far as I know that ISO image OS is also difficult to be upgraded.  The problem lies with Virmach and how the VPSs have been configured, even before they were upgraded to KVM.  Once you fiddle with anything, inevitably the OS has to be reloaded again with plenty of headaches for the VPS 9 Holder.  VPS 9 is not Ubuntu friendly in its configuration.  Whereas quite a number of our other VPSs are Ubuntu friendly and there is no need for loading an ISO image - by way of a comparison.

So OK, maybe Ubuntu won't work with your project for VPS 9, but maybe it could work for some of our other VPSs.  Like VPS 2, 3 and 7 for example.  Let's not just look at VPS 9, but rather across the board.  Particularly since VPS 9 owners are more experienced and specialists as they need to be more experienced in order to get and keep VPS 9.  From an Admin support point of view the greater number of requests for OS reinstallation come from beginner or careless users with the other VPSs. If you can fix this so they can do it from the command line it will certainly be very helpful.

[rudra]

@deanhills
Thank you for the information !!

I was doing some checks and found that VPS 18 and VPS 9 still using seabios version 0.5.1 .. that is like ancient !! I mean even ubuntu 14.04 lts repo has version 1.7.4

this seabios is the bios that gets loaded when a VPS loads up ( think of this as bios of the virtual pc ).

what this means is the KVM installs are probably horribly back dated and it seems their policy is 'dont touch until it breaks apart'

In terms of latest hardware and software support, security and stability, updating the qemu and seabios binary etc are very very important. So I have no idea why it has been kept back. It is not like old system image wont boot on a newer updated qemu kvm .. no idea really..

But I hope that wont be a problem for what I want to do.. lets hope for the best..

[Honey]

Currently I have a VPS 5 but I have had non control panel VPSes so I think I am liable to answer this

1) what are the Linux flavours you use ? centos, ubuntu. please mention version

1 - My favorite flavor is Ubuntu, as for version Its usually the latest one available. (Currently using 18.04). The reason being Ubuntu was the only flavor I really learned how to use since the beginning and I haven't given other flavors a try yet.

2) could you afford to spare / reserve say 3-5 GB space on your HDD for system recovery or reinstall on your own any time you like ?

2 - Sure enough, in my years of VPS handling I have never had storage issues, I'm sure 3-5GB won't hurt

3) do you want option to emergency reboot to a live environment with vnc access and recover / reinstall from there ?

3 - I don't quite get what you mean here, but if u mean if I loose access to ssh somehow and need emergency access via VNC then sure!

4) do you use passwords or key file to login to your vps through ssh ?

4 - I use keyfile only when I have no other choice (Amazon makes u use keyfiles), usually I just use a strong password.

5) what is your current hdd partition scheme ? what would you do differently if you could configure it during install ?

5 - I haven't exactly configured my partition scheme, Its the way It was setup by the provider.