Automatic installation with Ubuntu 22.04 and cloud-init
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The new automatic installation method rolled out with Ubuntu 22.04 borrows some tools from the cloud configuration toolbox. We'll show you how to get started.
Have you ever wished that setting up an operating system could be faster and easier? This article describes how to install Ubuntu 22.04 automatically. An automated installation will save you time and effort, especially if you need to perform the installation more than once.
I'll walk you through the task of setting up a preconfigured Ubuntu server that hosts the installation files from a pre-downloaded ISO while a virtual machine (VM) client boots in UEFI mode over the network. Prior to Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu's preferred method for automated installation was to use Debian-Installer with a preseed file (preseed.cfg) defining the configuration. The new way to perform automatic installs on Ubuntu is to define the configuration using a YAML file and then use the cloud-init utility [1], which was created to support installation in the cloud, to set up the system.
Getting Started
The first step is to configure some services that will help find and deliver the installation files. These services include DNS, the naming service; DHCP, for IP address assignment; and Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP), for file transfer between the client and server and vice versa. Then I'll set up a web server to provide configuration files for the system.
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