[Mashiro]

Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS Installation in SolusVM via ISO

Hello Post4VPS Community

I'm going to make this opening paragraph brief this time. This guide will simply show the basic installation process of Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS via a ISO file in the VPS control panel SolusVM. I'm making this guide because it has been requested by staff. This guide is basic only. I will not cover how to perform the installation with a custom partition layout and similar other customizations that can be performed during installation. I'm also making a basic installation because I don't have much free time thanks to SARS-CoV-2 and my real job at which we have a lot stuff to do in order to make things like home office work and get things ready for the worst case scenario.

Let's get the ball rollin.

---

The Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS ISO has to be available in your SolusVM control panel! If it is NOT ask your provider or rather said if it is for a VPS from here open a support thread. If it is NOT available there is no point in following this guide at this time.


Step 1

Open the SolusVM control panel of your VPS and login with your user account.

Once you're in select the VPS which you want to manage and click the "Manage" button which will lead you to a overview of the VPS stats and options.


Step 2

At the main page with all your VPS stats and options open the "Settings" tab in the lower part of the page.
- Make sure "VNC" is set to "On".
- After that change "Boot Order" to "(1) CD ROM (2) Hard Disk".

Screenshot


Now open the "CDROM" tab in the lower part of the page.
- Select the Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS ISO.
- Click on the "Mount" button to mount the ISO.

Screenshot


Now click on the "Reboot" button in the middle part of the page where all control buttons are such as "Shutdown", "Boot" and etc.

Screenshot


You will see a message asking if you really want to reboot. Answer this question with "Yes". Your VPS will now reboot with the new settings for the boot order and with the Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS ISO mounted to boot from it as per boot order. Once the VPS has rebooted you will see a message saying that the reboot process has been completed.


Step 3

Quickly after the reboot process has been finished click on the "VNC" button in the middle part of the page.

Screenshot


At the VNC page click on "HTML5 Client VNC SSL" (the green button).

Screenshot


A new popup window should open with the screen content of your VPS being visible like you would be setting infront of it with a monitor connected to it. If the popup windows doesn't open make sure you allow popups on the SolusVM page of your provider.

Now your VPS is booted into the Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS installation ISO and you are connected to it via VNC provided by SolusVM without the need for an external applications such as a VNC client or Java for the Java VNC client.


Step 4

The first part of the installation is the language selection. Select your language using the UP/DOWN arrow keys and press ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


At the next screen you can configure which keyboard layout you want to use. This is only important when you access the VPS by means of this VNC. I will leave it as it is at the Englisch (US) keyboard. Beware that keys might not match your layout if you don't change this option. You can change it using the UP/DOWN arrow keys and the ENTER key. Once done move the cursor to the "Done" option at the bottom and hit the ENTER key to proceed.

Screenshot


Now you will be at a screen where you can select to simply install Ubuntu Server or install it in some specific configurations for Cloud hosting and similar. Here simply select "Install Ubuntu" and hit the ENTER key to continue.

Screenshot


At the next step you can configure the network adapter of your VPS. You can either leave it on DHCP if you see the correct address. If it displays a wrong IP address you have to change it to "Manual" and configure the network adapter with your VPS IP address and network information.

This information can be obtained in SolusVM. Click on the "Network" tab and then click on your IP address. A small popup window will open with your IP address, your gateway and the netmask. You can use this information to configure the network adapter.

I will not cover this any further as it would make this tutorial to long and would basically require a whole lesson about network, netmask and how to convert netmasks to CIDR.

A netmask to CIDR table is available here: https://kb.wisc.edu/page.php?id=3493

You can find out your IP network with the help of your IP and the netmask in CIDR using this site: http://jodies.de/ipcalc

Example:
IP address: 123.123.95.34
Netmask in CIDR: 27 (/27)

That means that your network is actually 123.123.95.32/27 as the subnet your IP address is in begins with the address 123.123.95.32. This is the network address and cannot be assigned to any device. The next first and usable IP address would be 123.123.95.33 which in most cases would be the gateway of your network.

Use the sites I provided and you will get all necessary information. Actually, I think one can expect that from people who have been here for years and had the interest in computers and VPSs... that they know how to get and understand such information or find sites that can help you with that.

I also cannot show how to configure this because the VPS I use has been given to me to make the guide but it is not mine and I cannot make the IP information public. Sorry.

Once you configured your network go down to the "Done" option and hit your ENTER key to continue.

Screenshot


Now you will be presented with a screen asking for a proxy configuration. Do not fill anything out here. Just select "Done" at the bottom and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


On the next screen you can change the mirror from which the packages for the installation and later on all packages in the installed Ubuntu Server will be used. You can leave this at the default or change it if you know what you are doing and have a different mirror.

Once you're done with changing it or have left it on the default simply select "Done" at the bottom and hit ENTER to proceed.

Screenshot


At this stage you will now see a screen where you can select partitions and how your Ubuntu Server should be installed. Since we will not cover any customizations on this part and only do the basics just select "Use An Entire Disk" and hit the ENTER key.

Screenshot


What will happen now is that the installer will automatically create all partitions needed for you. This is called "guided partitioning".

At the next screen select the virtual disk of your VPS and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


On the next screen you will see a overview of which partitions will be created and now. Just select "Done" at the bottom and hit ENTER to proceed.

Screenshot


You will be asked if you really want to continue. Answer this question with "Continue".


After that the installation will already start in the background. You will see a screen where you can now configure a user, hostname and password for that user. This user will be by default in the sudoers group. By default Ubuntu doesn't allow to configure the root account if done via the real ISO installation. OS templates are a different thing and there root is enabled by default but not if you install Ubuntu Server normally yourself via the ISO.

Fill out the page with all needed information and go down to "Done" and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


Once that is done you will be at the "Featured Server Snaps" page. Server Snaps are basically prebuild application bundles that can be installed. We don't want to install anything. So use the TAB key to go to the "Done" option at the bottom and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


Now wait until the installation is finished. Once the installation is finished you will have to options. 1) will be "View full log" and 2) will be "Reboot Now". And at the top you will see "Finished install!". Once this is visible and you see these two options your installation is done.

Select the "Reboot Now" option and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


The installer will now exit. You will see a message saying "Please remove the installation medium, then press ENTER:". At this stage simply press the ENTER key to continue.

You can now close the VNC window.


Step 5

In SolusVM go back to the "CDROM" tab and hit the blue "Unmount" button to eject the Ubuntu ISO.

Screenshot


After that go to the "Settings" tab and change "Boot Order" back to "(1) Hard Disk (2) CD ROM)".

Screenshot


In the controls area click on the "Reboot" button and answer the question about whether you want to reboot with "Yes". Wait for the reboot to finish. After that you can login via SSH and the username and password you created during the installation process.

---

With that the installation is done. I would recommend to run the following commands right after accessing SSH for the first time to update the server:

Code: (Select All)

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt-get --purge autoremove -y
sudo reboot

That's it folks.

[ikk157]

Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS Installation in SolusVM via ISO

Hello Post4VPS Community

I'm going to make this opening paragraph brief this time. This guide will simply show the basic installation process of Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS via a ISO file in the VPS control panel SolusVM. I'm making this guide because it has been requested by staff. This guide is basic only. I will not cover how to perform the installation with a custom partition layout and similar other customizations that can be performed during installation. I'm also making a basic installation because I don't have much free time thanks to SARS-CoV-2 and my real job at which we have a lot stuff to do in order to make things like home office work and get things ready for the worst case scenario.

Let's get the ball rollin.

---

The Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS ISO has to be available in your SolusVM control panel! If it is NOT ask your provider or rather said if it is for a VPS from here open a support thread. If it is NOT available there is no point in following this guide at this time.


Step 1

Open the SolusVM control panel of your VPS and login with your user account.

Once you're in select the VPS which you want to manage and click the "Manage" button which will lead you to a overview of the VPS stats and options.


Step 2

At the main page with all your VPS stats and options open the "Settings" tab in the lower part of the page.
- Make sure "VNC" is set to "On".
- After that change "Boot Order" to "(1) CD ROM (2) Hard Disk".

Screenshot


Now open the "CDROM" tab in the lower part of the page.
- Select the Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS ISO.
- Click on the "Mount" button to mount the ISO.

Screenshot


Now click on the "Reboot" button in the middle part of the page where all control buttons are such as "Shutdown", "Boot" and etc.

Screenshot


You will see a message asking if you really want to reboot. Answer this question with "Yes". Your VPS will now reboot with the new settings for the boot order and with the Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS ISO mounted to boot from it as per boot order. Once the VPS has rebooted you will see a message saying that the reboot process has been completed.


Step 3

Quickly after the reboot process has been finished click on the "VNC" button in the middle part of the page.

Screenshot


At the VNC page click on "HTML5 Client VNC SSL" (the green button).

Screenshot


A new popup window should open with the screen content of your VPS being visible like you would be setting infront of it with a monitor connected to it. If the popup windows doesn't open make sure you allow popups on the SolusVM page of your provider.

Now your VPS is booted into the Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS installation ISO and you are connected to it via VNC provided by SolusVM without the need for an external applications such as a VNC client or Java for the Java VNC client.


Step 4

The first part of the installation is the language selection. Select your language using the UP/DOWN arrow keys and press ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


At the next screen you can configure which keyboard layout you want to use. This is only important when you access the VPS by means of this VNC. I will leave it as it is at the Englisch (US) keyboard. Beware that keys might not match your layout if you don't change this option. You can change it using the UP/DOWN arrow keys and the ENTER key. Once done move the cursor to the "Done" option at the bottom and hit the ENTER key to proceed.

Screenshot


Now you will be at a screen where you can select to simply install Ubuntu Server or install it in some specific configurations for Cloud hosting and similar. Here simply select "Install Ubuntu" and hit the ENTER key to continue.

Screenshot


At the next step you can configure the network adapter of your VPS. You can either leave it on DHCP if you see the correct address. If it displays a wrong IP address you have to change it to "Manual" and configure the network adapter with your VPS IP address and network information.

This information can be obtained in SolusVM. Click on the "Network" tab and then click on your IP address. A small popup window will open with your IP address, your gateway and the netmask. You can use this information to configure the network adapter.

I will not cover this any further as it would make this tutorial to long and would basically require a whole lesson about network, netmask and how to convert netmasks to CIDR.

A netmask to CIDR table is available here: https://kb.wisc.edu/page.php?id=3493

You can find out your IP network with the help of your IP and the netmask in CIDR using this site: http://jodies.de/ipcalc

Example:
IP address: 123.123.95.34
Netmask in CIDR: 27 (/27)

That means that your network is actually 123.123.95.32/27 as the subnet your IP address is in begins with the address 123.123.95.32. This is the network address and cannot be assigned to any device. The next first and usable IP address would be 123.123.95.33 which in most cases would be the gateway of your network.

Use the sites I provided and you will get all necessary information. Actually, I think one can expect that from people who have been here for years and had the interest in computers and VPSs... that they know how to get and understand such information or find sites that can help you with that.

I also cannot show how to configure this because the VPS I use has been given to me to make the guide but it is not mine and I cannot make the IP information public. Sorry.

Once you configured your network go down to the "Done" option and hit your ENTER key to continue.

Screenshot


Now you will be presented with a screen asking for a proxy configuration. Do not fill anything out here. Just select "Done" at the bottom and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


On the next screen you can change the mirror from which the packages for the installation and later on all packages in the installed Ubuntu Server will be used. You can leave this at the default or change it if you know what you are doing and have a different mirror.

Once you're done with changing it or have left it on the default simply select "Done" at the bottom and hit ENTER to proceed.

Screenshot


At this stage you will now see a screen where you can select partitions and how your Ubuntu Server should be installed. Since we will not cover any customizations on this part and only do the basics just select "Use An Entire Disk" and hit the ENTER key.

Screenshot


What will happen now is that the installer will automatically create all partitions needed for you. This is called "guided partitioning".

At the next screen select the virtual disk of your VPS and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


On the next screen you will see a overview of which partitions will be created and now. Just select "Done" at the bottom and hit ENTER to proceed.

Screenshot


You will be asked if you really want to continue. Answer this question with "Continue".


After that the installation will already start in the background. You will see a screen where you can now configure a user, hostname and password for that user. This user will be by default in the sudoers group. By default Ubuntu doesn't allow to configure the root account if done via the real ISO installation. OS templates are a different thing and there root is enabled by default but not if you install Ubuntu Server normally yourself via the ISO.

Fill out the page with all needed information and go down to "Done" and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


Once that is done you will be at the "Featured Server Snaps" page. Server Snaps are basically prebuild application bundles that can be installed. We don't want to install anything. So use the TAB key to go to the "Done" option at the bottom and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


Now wait until the installation is finished. Once the installation is finished you will have to options. 1) will be "View full log" and 2) will be "Reboot Now". And at the top you will see "Finished install!". Once this is visible and you see these two options your installation is done.

Select the "Reboot Now" option and hit ENTER to continue.

Screenshot


The installer will now exit. You will see a message saying "Please remove the installation medium, then press ENTER:". At this stage simply press the ENTER key to continue.

You can now close the VNC window.


Step 5

In SolusVM go back to the "CDROM" tab and hit the blue "Unmount" button to eject the Ubuntu ISO.

Screenshot


After that go to the "Settings" tab and change "Boot Order" back to "(1) Hard Disk (2) CD ROM)".

Screenshot


In the controls area click on the "Reboot" button and answer the question about whether you want to reboot with "Yes". Wait for the reboot to finish. After that you can login via SSH and the username and password you created during the installation process.

---

With that the installation is done. I would recommend to run the following commands right after accessing SSH for the first time to update the server:

Code: (Select All)

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt-get --purge autoremove -y
sudo reboot

That's it folks.

Excellent and extremely detailed guide! Thank you so much for this! This guide is pretty much a “breaking point” for VPS9 holders as it was previously thought that Ubuntu would never work on the VPS9s.

[deanhills]

Excellent and extremely detailed review! Thank you so much for this! This guide is pretty much a “breaking point” for VPS9 holders as it was previously thought that Ubuntu would never work on the VPS9s.

@"Hidden Refuge" @ikk157 couldn't have said it better for me. Thank you so much for this detailed step by step guide.

While I was struggling with the installation last weekend, I tried to Google a tutorial and couldn't find one. So I'm going to make this into a sticky tutorial.

I have one inquiry. One that I encountered last weekend when I tried to install Ubuntu. When you get to the step below - were you able to get the HTML5 Client up easily? Like I first tried the Java Applet and apparently browsers don't like it that much and it's disabled by Google Chrome. I did manage to get the HTML5 Client up, but it felt very clumsy to me. Your detailed steps are awesome, many thanks.

[Mashiro]

Well, I had to disable the popup blocker of Microsoft Edge Chromium because it was blocking the HTML5 VNC popup window. After that the HTML5 VNC console just opened up normally and I could use it normally. That was my only issues with it or rather said a issue that was on my side.

[humanpuff69]

this is why some provider are starting to give preinstalled image . it is much easier just to press install and wait than go to all this hassle but unfortunately some provider doesnt have the image and only have the iso . but on the other hand most of the provider with iso only have KVM vnc access . it is kinda rare to see vps with KVM vnc access . most cloud like aws , google and azure doesnt even have one

the one that have it is digital ocean , vultr and some of the sponsor here

[ikk157]

this is why some provider are starting to give preinstalled image . it is much easier just to press install and wait than go to all this hassle but unfortunately some provider doesnt have the image and only have the iso . but on the other hand most of the provider with iso only have KVM vnc access . it is kinda rare to see vps with KVM vnc access . most cloud like aws , google and azure doesnt even have one

the one that have it is digital ocean , vultr and some of the sponsor here

It’s not really much of a hassle. Don’t let the amount of steps fool you. The installation is quite straightforward and as soon as you get into VNC everything would be self explanatory. It’s pretty much exactly how it would’ve been had you have been installing it on your own computer. 

Templates for KVM aren’t really a good idea. Because as Hidden Refuge described in a private thread, KVM is very similar to installing something on your own machine, and the OS installation adapts to the machine it’s being installed on. So you can’t just make a template and expect it to work on every VPS, that’s exactly why VirMach’s Ubuntu template for VPS 9s doesn’t work.

[Mashiro]

Any provider who is providing KVM VPSs or similar hardware virtualization (VMWare, Xen-HVM...) should already have provided you with access to a console (regardless of SolusVM/Virtualizor calling it VNC). A console is a basic feature for KVM and is absolutely needed to perform emergency access to the VPS or perform OS installations and maintenance without SSH access (e.g. offline partition changes, system recovery...). This console and the control panel is to you what HP iLO, DELL iDRAC, Fujitsu ServerView and any other remote server management panel is to your hosting provider for their dedicated servers and VM hypervisors. It's a vital thing to have and needed to perform any kind of remote operations. Especially with a virtual thing since you cannot touch it... you need "remote hands" or "KVM". A lot of names for the same thing.

Anyway... the installation process for those who know how to install Linux by ISO will probably take no longer than 15 minutes depending on the performance of the service and the network speed. It only looks like there are lot of steps to do but as you can see on the screenshots yourself the installation just consists of only 11 steps overall. Sure some steps are a bit divided such as partitioning if you decide to do a custom layout and a few others. If you stick with the defaults though the installation is done absolutely quickly and you are ready to go.

Why this guide was made specific for Ubuntu Server 18.04? Well, because it was for a help thread in regards to a broken KVM template of Ubuntu Server 18.04 on VirMach. VirMach knows it is broken but doesn't want to fix it or can't because they didn't create the template. Their way of fixing the problem was telling us to install it from ISO.... so here is a guide for those who haven't installed it from a ISO before. Honestly I prefer installation from ISO over any template system. It has more freedom and allows you to install and setup the system HOW YOU WANT IT. A template was made by someone somewhere... with something you don't know. Like OpenVZ templates came preloaded with a lot of bloatware (preinstall web server and etc...). Back in the days there were even faulty KVM templates that had a big security issue in regards to SSH keys on the server. Basically every KVM VPS using that broken template would have exactly the same SSH keys across all the VPSs and providers world wide (who used the template).

[rudra]

i am not installing OSes as frequently as i used to. hence i lack experience to figure it out myself. So i decided to all this to you.

connecting an HDD in another computer with an already installed Windows system sometimes used to give HAL error ( hardware abstraction layer) due to incompatible hardware change or io address conflict or something. but i don't see those with Windows 10 anymore. i don't mean it can't happen in such situations. just that i don't see them happen when i swap hdd like that.

i was under the impression that Linux was even better and it could recover even serious hardware change given a couple of reboots (usually one) and if the kernel was not a customized one but the generic ( slightly bigger) one.

so why preinstalled template for kvm would not work is beyond me.

please enlighten me how things could go wrong. some examples please...

thanks.

re. if this is the wrong thread for this, then i can start a new one. but it just feels relevant here.

[Mashiro]

@rudra

The issue here isn't Linux or a specific Linux distribution itself in that case. Generally Linux should indeed handle a hardware change much better than Windows. Especially with a generic kernel there should be no big issues and it would support a wide range of hardware while much older hardware might have issues with Windows and won't boot unless a clean installation is performed.

The issue with this specific setup is related to the way KVM templates work and how the Ubuntu 18.04 template is built/made. Actually I'm not sure what is going on myself but I have had issues with exactly the same Ubuntu 18.04 template with other hosting providers, too. It never worked. Most providers use the very same templates from the very same source. I had a few providers that built their own Ubuntu 18.04 templates and these worked flawless. However the premade ones seem to be causing issues on specific setups while they work on others.

That's why I always recommend to install and setup your OS via ISO. Not a big fan of templates unless they work. Hetzner has good KVM templates. All of them seem to work and they actually seem to care about them. They have post installation scripts and setup scripts. This way the OS actually adjusts to the VPS and gets updated after installation. KVM templates... nada. It's at the stage at which it was created some time ago. If the provider doesn't pull a new version you might have a very old template. Ubuntu doesn't even pull updates through the installation though. That's another thing though.

[deanhills]

@"Hidden Refuge"  I agree with you about Hetzner and how attention to detail would make it possible to set up Ubuntu 18.04 so it works straight off the bat as a template attached to the Admin Panel.  HostUS technicians also have a firm handle on Ubuntu 18.04 too.  You can check the notification from HostUS below:
https://my.hostus.us/announcements/38/Ne...d-KVM.html

How about Open VZ 7?  Have you heard any feedback about the successful installation of Ubuntu 18.04 template on Open VZ 7?