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Custom ISO Installation for OVH VPS Servers

In the world of VPS sometimes the default options are not enough. In these cases, we may need a custom ISO for a specific operating system or to fine-tune your installation.

Today, our experts are going to take us through installing a custom ISO on our VPS using rescue mode and QEMU/KVM.

Step-by-step Guide

1. The first step is to reboot our VPS into rescue mode. This lets us make changes to our system without affecting our primary installation.
2. Then, we have to connect to rescue mode via SSH and unmount the necessary partitions. We can use these commands for a clean slate:

   # lsblk
# umount /dev/sdb1
# fdisk -u /dev/sdb
> d
> d
> w

3. Next, we have to install the required packages, including QEMU/KVM:

   # apt install qemu-kvm
4. After that, we have to download the ISO we want to install on our VPS. Since that rescue mode has limited space, it is better to opt for NetInst/Minimal ISOs.

   For example:

   # wget http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/sites/mirror.centos.org/8.0.1905/isos/x86_64/CentOS-8-x86_64-1905-boot.iso
5. Now, we can run QEMU with the appropriate settings, and replace the ISO location and VPS disk name as needed:

   # qemu-system-x86_64 -netdev type=user,id=mynet0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=mynet0 -m 2048 -localtime -enable-kvm -drive index=0,media=disk,if=virtio,file=/dev/sdb -vga qxl -spice port=5900,addr=127.0.0.1,disable-ticketing -daemonize -cdrom /tmp/CentOS-8-x86_64-1905-boot.iso -boot d

6. If our workstation is running Linux, it is time to forward a port through an SSH tunnel to our VPS:

   # ssh -4 -v root@ -L 5900:localhost:5900
7. Then, connect to SPICE running on local port 5900 on the localhost.

   # remote-viewer
> spice://127.0.0.1?port=5900

8. Now, we need to follow the usual installation process on the VPS. If we downloaded a Minimal/NetInst image, we have to configure the source installation. For CentOS 8, use:
   • http
   • repository URL
   • mirror.centos.org/centos/8/BaseOS/x86_64/os/81
9. After installation, reboot the server and exit rescue mode.
10. Finally, it is time to connect to our new CentOS 8 instance and verify the installation:

    # cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS Linux release 8.0.1905 (Core)


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Conclusion

In brief, our Support Experts introduced us to custom ISO Installation for OVH VPS Servers.