vpsbootstrap

Creates a ~90MB ISO image for installing a custom OS onto a VPS.

Concept

1. Build image with your SSH keys integrated.
2. SCP the ISO image to your VPS.
3. Use dd to write it to your VPS's main disk.
4. Force reboot the VPS with reboot -f.
5. SSH into the VPS on port 8022.
6. Overwrite the disk and install whatever you want.

Most distributions have guides on how to do step #6.

• Ubuntu
• Debian
• Arch
• Alpine

For other distributions, it usually goes like this:

1. Download a rootfs of your favorite distro.
2. Partition your VPS's disk.
3. Create filesystems for root (and swap).
4. Extract the rootfs to the newly created filesystem.
5. Use chroot to configure the system.
6. Unmount everything and run sync.
7. Reboot into the distro.

Features

• Automatic network configuration.
• SSH configured on port 8022.
• Just enough to install whatever you want.
• Based on Alpine Linux.
• Runs entirely from system RAM.

Building

cat ~/.ssh/*.pub > authorized_keys
sudo ./build.sh