netboot image for 18.04 broken with unattended install

[Reinhard]

It looks like that the netboot image found in
"/ubuntu/dists/bionic/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64" upload date 2.2.2018
is broken for unattended install.

With a preseed file, which was working with 16.04, 17.10 and 18.04 at the beginning the installation stop after trying to get network-configuration via dhcp.
It looks like only a dhcp request for ip6 is done.

Further it looks like, if there is a problem with dns resolution, because after a manual network-configuration is done, the download of the preseed-file (url from kernel startparameter) fails, with error-message >>tftp01<< not found.

url from kernel startparameter:
kernel ubuntu-installer/18.04/amd64/linux
append auto=true priority=critical url=tftp://tftp01/preseed/systemd/preseed_2P_1F_2F.cfg vga=788 initrd=ubuntu-installer/18.04/amd64/initrd.gz -- quiet

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

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[Marco Ochse (t3chn0m4g3)]

The following netboot image still works with DHCP for IPv4:
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/bionic/main/installer-amd64/20101020ubuntu527/images/netboot/

It seems if the change was introduced later.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Marco Ochse (t3chn0m4g3)]

Update: DHCP v4 request even fails when using the netboot installer as-is without any preseed config.

[Luis Sánchez Bejarano (lsanchez)]

I also have the same bug with debian-installer and netboot install.
Also, when I exec "dhclient iface" command on installer terminal (ALT+F2 or ALT+F3), the system shows this error:

dhclient: error while loading shared libraries: libcrypto.so.1.0.0: connot open shared object file: No such file or directory

It seems that this library missing into the initrd.gz

[martin (martin-andersen)]

Seeing the same behavior on our clients. Successful netboot installation was possible before end of January (actual dates: Jan 12, 17, 19 & 30). Preseeding stops at keyboard layout selection. The same preseed file works with 16.04, 16.10, 17.04 & 17.10 (and 18.04 prior to February)

Also witnessed the libcrypto.so.1.0.0 error reported above for dhclient when configuring networking manually. Looking at the installer log, udhcpd also insisted on configuring the domain name for the systems (which is detected properly via dhcp hostname as well as set via 'd-i netcfg/get_domain string' as 'bad')

It appears the entire preseed file is ignored in the later netboot images. This is quite critical.

If there is a snapshot of an earlier bionic install-tree somewhere (i.e, from mid-January) this would be of interest.

[martin (martin-andersen)]

Unfortunately the workaround mentioned in comment #2 (older netboot image from http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/bionic/main/installer-amd64/20101020ubuntu527/images/netboot/) is not an option as it throws an error regarding missing kernel modules in the initrd –

"No kernel modules were found. This probably is due to a mismatch between the kernel used by this version of the installer and the kernel version in the archive.

If you're installing from a mirror, you can work around this problem by choosing to install a different version of Ubuntu. The install will probably fail to work if you continue without kernel modules"

However:

$ lsmod

Module
usb_storage
hid_generic
usbhid
hid
vga16fb
vgastate
ghash_clmulni_intel
pcbc
aesni_intel
aes_x86_64
crypto_simd
cryptd
glue_helper
e1000e
ptp
pps_core

$ uname -r
4.13.0-25-generic

$ ls /lib/modules
4.13.0-25-generic

So not really an accurate error message at all. I suspect it is simply because it checks the Packages file and finds that there are newer versions available on the mirror.

[Luis Sánchez Bejarano (lsanchez)]

The netboot kernel that has been updated today already has fixed this bug and dhclient works fine. Both, amd64 and i386 architectures.

[martin (martin-andersen)]

I can confirm that the recent netboot kernel (4.13.0-32-generic from Jan 25th) and initrd have indeed fixed this and unattended installs are functioning again with preseed.

Thanks for the quick fix.

[Reinhard (reinhard-fink)]

Just tested my preseeded-installation with the new netboot-image uploaded on 2018-02-19 and installation worked as expected.
There where NO problems with dns resolution or networkconfiguration via dhcp.
Thanks :-)

[Marco Ochse (t3chn0m4g3)]

Works for me as well.

Thank you :o)