Thanks for the tips. I've finally found some time to get back on to
trying this again.

I've tried to test it out with the following command:

vm=testhost ; time sudo virt-install --name="${vm}" --memory=2048
--vcpus=1 --os-variant debiantesting --hvm --disk size=20
--location=/home/devuan/Downloads/devuan_chimaera_4.0.0_amd64_netinstall.iso
--initrd-inject=/home/devuan/preseed/devuan.preseed --extra-args
"hostname=${vm} NOTIFYEMAIL=email@??? interface=auto" --debug
--network type=bridge,source=virbr0 --noautoconsole

but it can't find the installation media.

----8<----
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (guest:320)
Setting Guest osinfo name <_OsVariant name=generic>
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (guest:320)
Setting Guest osinfo name <_OsVariant name=debiantesting>
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urlfetcher:38)
Using scratchdir=/var/lib/libvirt/boot
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:284)
Finding distro store for
location=/home/devuan/Downloads/devuan_chimaera_4.0.0_amd64_netinstall.iso
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:874)
variant=debiantesting has distro=debian, looking for matching distro
store to prioritize
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:883)
Prioritizing distro store=<class
'virtinst.install.urldetect._DebianDistro'>
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urlfetcher:332)
Running isoinfo: ['isoinfo', '-J', '-i',
'/home/devuan/Downloads/devuan_chimaera_4.0.0_amd64_netinstall.iso',
'-f']
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:45)
Failed to acquire file=current/images/MANIFEST
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:45)
Failed to acquire file=current/legacy-images/MANIFEST
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:45)
Failed to acquire file=daily/MANIFEST
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urlfetcher:320)
Running isoinfo: ['isoinfo', '-J', '-i',
'/home/devuan/Downloads/devuan_chimaera_4.0.0_amd64_netinstall.iso',
'-x', '/.disk/info']
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urlfetcher:72)
Fetching URI: /.disk/info
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:108)
found filename=.disk/info but regex=Debian.* didn't match
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:45)
Failed to acquire file=.treeinfo
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:45)
Failed to acquire file=treeinfo
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:45)
Failed to acquire file=content
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:108)
found filename=.disk/info but regex=Ubuntu.* didn't match
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (urldetect:45)
Failed to acquire file=VERSION
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (cli:255)   File
"/usr/bin/virt-install", line 8, in <module>
    virtinstall.runcli()
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/virtinstall.py", line 1158, in runcli
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/virtinstall.py", line 1145, in main
    guest, installer = build_guest_instance(conn, options)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/virtinstall.py", line 586, in
build_guest_instance
    installer_detect_distro(guest, installer, osdata)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/virtinstall.py", line 549, in
installer_detect_distro
    fail(_("Error validating install location: %s") % str(e))
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/cli.py", line 255, in fail
    log.debug("".join(traceback.format_stack()))

[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] ERROR (cli:256) Error
validating install location: Could not find an installable
distribution at URL
'/home/devuan/Downloads/devuan_chimaera_4.0.0_amd64_netinstall.iso'

The location must be the root directory of an install tree.
See virt-install man page for various distro examples.
[Thu, 20 Jul 2023 19:48:03 virt-install 6546] DEBUG (cli:258)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/virtinstall.py", line 544, in
installer_detect_distro
    autodistro = installer.detect_distro(guest)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/install/installer.py", line
532, in detect_distro
    ret = self._treemedia.detect_distro(guest)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/install/installertreemedia.py",
line 306, in detect_distro
    cache = self._get_cached_data(guest, fetcher)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/install/installertreemedia.py",
line 185, in _get_cached_data
    store = urldetect.getDistroStore(guest, fetcher,
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/install/urldetect.py", line
319, in getDistroStore
    raise ValueError(msg)
ValueError: Could not find an installable distribution at URL
'/home/devuan/Downloads/devuan_chimaera_4.0.0_amd64_netinstall.iso'

The location must be the root directory of an install tree.
----8<----

/.disk/info on the ISO doesn't include "Debian" anywhere so I'm not
entirely surprised by the error.

Is there some magic incantation required to get virt-install working
with Devuan?

I've tried changing to `--os-variant
name=debiantesting,detect=off,require=off` but still get the same
error.

Tom

On Tue, 25 Oct 2022 at 22:42, B Stack <bgstack15@???> wrote:
>
> Tom,
>
> My example from my blog [0] is over a year old, but it demonstrates
> the answers that were in use at the time. I probably need to publish a
> new version. Beware that I'm pretty sure my preseed file installed the
> old grub and not current grub so you probably don't want to just use
> the whole thing. Old grub was the first one I got working with preseed
> I think, and I forget why I was using old grub otherwise.
>
> In the past I had had trouble with the Devuan installer ISO files, and
> I normally used beta ones. Also specifically in my situation for
> instantiating VMs in libvirt/qemu/kvm, I had to modify libvirt to
> extract the correct filenames for our different-from-debian iso file
> such as initrd.gz. That will be documented somewhere on my blog too
> [1] but I doubt that will affect VMWare.
>
> B. Stack
>
> [0]: https://bgstack15.ddns.net/blog/posts/2021/05/23/use-virt-install-to-fully-automate-the-install-for-devuan-ceres-with-preseed-may-2021-edition/
> [1]: https://bgstack15.ddns.net/blog/posts/2020/03/26/use-virt-install-to-fully-automate-the-install-for-devuan-ceres-with-preseed-march-2020-edition/
>
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 4:46 AM wirelessduck--- via Dng
> <dng@???> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On 25 Oct 2022, at 00:55, Linux O'Beardly <linux.obeardly@???> wrote:
> >
> > 
> > I don't have an opinion on this, but I do hope you keep us informed. I would like to know the results of your efforts.
> >
> >
> > Thanks, will do.
> >
> > I’m still looking to find any devuan-specific preseed options eg. init system choice. Haven’t found anything searching through devuan Gitea.
> >
> > I might try to run the linked script on https://preseed.debian.net/debian-preseed/ against the devuan mirror if nothing else comes up.
> >
> > https://git.einval.com/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=steve-scripts.git;a=blob_plain;f=extract_template.pl;hb=HEAD
> >
> > If the preseed fails, I will probably wait for the upcoming Devuan docker hub images before attempting cloud-init.
> >
> > Tom
> > _______________________________________________
> > Dng mailing list
> > Dng@???
> > https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng



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