Install the OS manually from your image
You can manually install an OS from your own image on a dedicated server. If you do not have special requirements for the OS, we recommend using standard images — from them you can install the OS by auto-installation or manually.
- Boot the server in Rescue mode.
- Install the OS from your image.
- Optional: configure the network interface.
- Change the upload template.
1. Boot the server in Rescue mode
-
In the Control Panel, on the top menu, click Products and select Dedicated Servers.
-
In the Servers section, open the Server page → Operating System tab.
-
Click Change Upload Template.
-
In the Boot Template field, select Boot to Rescue.
-
Click Save and reboot. The server will be rebooted.
2. Install the OS
The script qemu-iso is
used to install the OS from its image. The script uploads the iso-image to the server, starts the VNC server and initiates the OS installation process.
The OS image can be uploaded to the server:
- via the URL of the image, which is hosted on a publicly available resource. The
qemu-iso
script will load the OS image into the server RAM; - or manually from the local computer to the disk or RAM of the server.
Install with image download via URL
Install by uploading the image to the server
-
Install a VNC client on the local computer. For a list of VNC clients for different operating systems, see the Connect by VNC subsection of the Connect to Server instructions.
-
Open the CLI. On a local Windows computer, use PowerShell.
-
Connect to the server via SSH by forwarding the standard port for VNC — 5900:
ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 root@<ip_address>
Specify
<ip_address>
— public IP address of the server. You can copy it in the control panel: in the top menu click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → Server → Server page → Operating System tab → in the IP field click . -
Copy the URL of the OS image you are going to install.The image must be hosted on a publicly available resource, and the image size must be smaller than the server's RAM by at least 2 GB.
To load the image faster, we recommend that you place the image in Selectel Object Storage — see the Load Object instructions for details.
-
Run the
qemu-iso
script.The script will upload the installation files to the server, start the VNC server, and initiate the OS installation process:qemu-iso <url>
Specify:
<url>
— path to the OS image you copied in step 4;- Optional:
-nic_type <virtual_network_adapter>
— the type of network device to emulate in the virtual machine.For example, for a VMware ESXi installation, change the virtual network adapter tovmxnet3
. For a complete list of supported virtual network adapters, see theqemu-system-x86_64 -device help
command.
-
Wait for a message that the OS image has been uploaded to the server and the VNC server is running:
VM has been created!
-
Open the VNC client on the local computer.
-
Connect to the server. The connection process depends on the selected VNC client. Parameters to connect:
- The IP address is
localhost:5900
; - password — leave the field blank.
- The IP address is
-
Go through all the steps of installing the OS.
-
In the Rescue console, press Ctrl + C to complete the
qemu-iso
process. -
Optional: without leaving Rescue mode, configure the network interface.We recommend that you configure the network interface immediately after installing the OS, otherwise the server may not be accessible over the network.
Download the image to disk
Load the image into RAM
-
Make sure that your server has an additional disk.The OS image must be placed on a disk on which the OS will not be installed.If the server does not have an additional disk, you can reconfigure the dedicated server.
-
Install a VNC client on the local computer. For a list of VNC clients for different operating systems, see the Connect by VNC subsection of the Connect to Server instructions.
-
Open the CLI. On a local Windows computer, use PowerShell.
-
Connect to the server via SSH by forwarding the standard port for VNC — 5900:
ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 root@<ip_address>
Specify
<ip_address>
— public IP address of the server. You can copy it in the control panel: in the top menu click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → Server → Server page → Operating System tab → in the IP field click . -
Save the image to your local computer.
-
Upload the OS image to the server:
6.1 Look for the name of the disk to which you are going to load the OS image, to do this, print the disk information:
lsblk
6.2 Create a partition on the disk:
fdisk /dev/<partition>
Specify
<partition>
— the disk partition to which the OS image will be loaded. For example, for a disk namedsdX
—sdX1
.6.3 Create a file system using the
mkfs
utility (ext4
partitioning format is used ):mkfs.ext4 /dev/<partition>
Specify
<partition>
— the partition on the disk you created in step 6.2.6.4 Mount the file system:
mount /dev/<partition> /mnt
Specify
<partition>
— the partition on the disk you created in step 6.2.6.5 Download the OS image from the local computer to the dedicated server using the
scp
utility:scp ./<iso_image_name> root@<ip_address>:/mnt/<partition>/
Specify:
<iso_image_name>
— name of the file with the OS image in the format.iso
;<ip_address>
— The public IP address of the server. Can be copied from the control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → server page → tab Operating System → in the field IP click ;<partition>
— partition on the disk you created in step 6.2.
-
Run the
qemu-iso
script. The script will start the VNC server and initiate the OS installation process:qemu-iso <path_to_image>
Specify:
<path_to_image>
— path to the OS image file you uploaded to the server in step 6.5. For example,/mnt/sdX1/Win_Server_2022.iso
;- Optional:
-nic_type <virtual_network_adapter>
— the type of network device to emulate in the virtual machine.For example, for a VMware ESXi installation, change the virtual network adapter tovmxnet3
. For a complete list of supported virtual network adapters, see theqemu-system-x86_64 -device help
command.
-
Wait for a message that the VNC server is running:
VM has been created!
-
Open the VNC client on the local computer.
-
Connect to the server. The connection process depends on the selected VNC client. Parameters to connect:
- The IP address is
localhost:5900
; - password — leave the field blank.
-
In the Rescue console, press Ctrl + C to complete the
qemu-iso
process. -
Optional: without leaving Rescue mode, configure the network interface.We recommend that you configure the network interface immediately after installing the OS, otherwise the server may not be accessible over the network.
-
Install a VNC client on the local computer. For a list of VNC clients for different operating systems, see Connect by VNC instructions Connect to Server.
-
Open the CLI. On a local Windows computer, use PowerShell.
-
Connect to the server via SSH by forwarding the standard port for VNC — 5900:
ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 root@<ip_address>
Specify
<ip_address>
— public IP address of the server. You can copy it in the control panel: in the top menu click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → Server → Server page → Operating System tab → in the IP field click . -
Save the OS image on a local computer.The image size should be smaller than the server RAM by at least 2 GB.
-
Load the OS image into the RAM of the dedicated server using the
scp
utility:scp ./<iso_image_name> root@<ip_address>:/tmp/
Specify:
<iso_image_name>
— name of the file with the OS image in the format.iso
;<ip_address>
— The public IP address of the server. Can be copied from the control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → Server page → tab Operating System → in the field IP click .
-
Run the
qemu-iso
script. The script will start the VNC server and initiate the OS installation process:qemu-iso <path_to_image>
Specify:
<path_to_image>
— path to the OS image you uploaded to the server in step 5. For example,/tmp/Win_Server_2022.iso
;- Optional:
-nic_type <virtual_network_adapter>
— the type of network device to emulate in the virtual machine.For example, for a VMware ESXi installation, change the virtual network adapter tovmxnet3
. For a complete list of supported virtual network adapters, see theqemu-system-x86_64 -device help
command.
-
Wait for a message that the VNC server is running:
VM has been created!
-
Open the VNC client on the local computer.
-
Connect to the server. The connection process depends on the selected VNC client. Parameters to connect:
- The IP address is
localhost:5900
; - password — leave the field blank.
- The IP address is
-
Go through all the steps of installing the OS.
-
In the Rescue console, press Ctrl + C to complete the
qemu-iso
process. -
Optional: without leaving Rescue mode, configure the network interface.We recommend that you configure the network interface immediately after installing the OS, otherwise the server may not be accessible over the network.
3. Configure the network interface
After manually installing the OS, the network configuration file may contain the interface name that was used in the virtual environment, such as eth0
.After a reboot on the physical server, the network interface may have a different name, such as enp1s0
.Because of this mismatch, the server may not be accessible over the network until the network interface name is corrected to the correct one. We recommend that you correct the name immediately after installing the OS without exiting Rescue mode.
You can also configure the network interface and synchronize the time with an external NTP server later.Additional OS settings depend on the configuration of the image you are installing.
Ubuntu
Debian
Windows
-
In the Rescue console, look up the name of the network interface by bringing up the network interface information:
ip a
In the response, find the interface in the UP state that has a public IP address.Memorize or copy the name of the network interface in the
altname
field. For example:1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host noprefixroute
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0c:00:0f:0:f0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enp1s0
inet 203.0.113.0/24 brd 203.0.113.255 scope global eth0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fe00::000c:00ff:fe0f:00f0/64 scope link proto kernel_ll
valid_lft forever preferred_lft foreverHere
enp1s0
is the name of the desired network interface. -
Connect to the OS installed on the server by running the
qemu-iso
script without specifying an image:qemu-iso
-
Change the values of the interface parameters:
3.1 Open the configuration file of the
netplan
utility with thevi
text editor:vi /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml
3.2 Change the values of the parameters.The correct values can be viewed in the control panel: in the top menu click Products → Dedicated Servers → Server page → Network tab → click on the desired subnet.The type of configuration file depends on the Ubuntu version:
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS
network:
ethernets:
<eth_name>:
addresses:
- <ip_address>/<mask>
renderer: networkd
version: 2Specify:
<eth_name>
— name of the network interface of the public network, value from the fieldaltname
that you looked at in step 1;<ip_address>
— The public IP address of the server. Can be copied from the control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → Server page → tab Operating System → in the field IP click ;<mask>
— subnet mask.
network:
version: 2
renderer: networkd
ethernets:
<eth_name>:
addresses:
- <ip_address>/<mask>Specify:
<eth_name>
— name of the network interface of the public network, value from the fieldaltname
that you looked at in step 1;<ip_address>
— The public IP address of the server. Can be copied from the control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → server page → tab Operating System → in the field IP click ;<mask>
— subnet mask.
-
Press ESC.
-
Exit the
vi
text editor with your changes saved::wq
-
Apply the configuration:
netplan apply
-
In the Rescue console, look up the name of the network interface by bringing up the network interface information:
ip a
In the response, find the interface in the UP state that has a public IP address.Memorize or copy the name of the network interface in the
altname
field. For example:1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host noprefixroute
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0c:00:0f:00:f0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enp1s0
inet 203.0.113.0/24 brd 203.0.113.255 scope global eth0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fe00::000c:00ff:fe0f:00f0 /64 scope link proto kernel_ll
valid_lft forever preferred_lft foreverHere
enp1s0
is the name of the desired network interface. -
Connect to the OS installed on the server by running the
qemu-iso
script without specifying an image:qemu-iso
-
Change the values of the interface parameters:
3.1 Open the network interfaces configuration file with the
vi
text editor:vi /etc/network/interfaces
3.2 Change the parameter values.The correct values can be viewed in the control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → Server → Server page → Server → Network tab → click the desired subnet.
auto <eth_name>
iface <eth_name> inet static
address <ip_address>
netmask <mask>Specify:
<eth_name>
— name of the network interface of the public network, value from the fieldaltname
that you looked at in step 1;<ip_address>
— public IP address of the server, e.g.203.0.113.0
. Can be copied into the control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → Server page → tab Operating System → in the field IP click ;<mask>
— subnet mask.
-
Press ESC.
-
Exit the
vi
text editor with your changes saved::wq
-
Restart the network:
service networking restart
-
Initialize the network interfaces by reverting to the previous server boot pattern or rebooting the server from the OS.When you reboot the server from the OS, the boot pattern will automatically change to the one that was set before the server booted in Rescue mode.
-
Boot the server in Rescue mode:
2.1 In the control panel, click Products in the top menu and select Dedicated Servers.
2.2.In the Servers section, open the Server page → Operating System tab.
2.3.Click Change Upload Template.
2.4.In the Boot Template field, select Boot to Rescue.
-
Connect to the server via SSH by forwarding the standard port for VNC — 5900.
ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 root@<ip_address>
Specify
<ip_address>
— public IP address of the server. You can copy it in the control panel: in the top menu click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → Server → Server page → Operating System tab → in the IP field click . -
Look up the name of the network adapter, to do this, bring up the Ethernet network device information:
lspci | grep Ethernet
The response will show the name of the network adapter. Memorize or copy it.
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)Here
Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection
is the name of the network adapter. -
Connect to the OS installed on the server by running the
qemu-iso
script without specifying an image:qemu-iso
-
Open the VNC client on the local computer.
-
Connect to the server. The connection process depends on the selected VNC client. Parameters to connect:
- The IP address is
localhost:5900
; - password — leave the field blank.
- The IP address is
-
Open
cmd
. -
Open the Registry Editor:
regedit
-
Find the interface you want:
10.1 Expand the registry section:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
The list will list network interfaces from address 0000 through 0013.
10.2 Find the interface that has the names of the network adapters obtained in step 4 in the
Driver Desc
parameter. Save theNetCfgInstanceId
value for the network adapter with the lowest number in the list. -
Change the values of the interface parameters:
11.1. Go to the registry section:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{<net_cfg_instance_id>}
Specify
<net_cfg_instance_id>
is the value of theNetCfgInstanceId
parameter that you saved in step 10.2.11.2 Change the parameter values.The correct values can be viewed in the control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Server page → Network tab → click the desired subnet.
IPAddress
— public IP address of the server, e.g.203.0.113.0
;SubnetMask
— subnet mask;DefaultGateway
— default gateway;EnableDHCP
— enter0
if you are not using DHCP, if you are.1
.
-
Configure the remote connection in Server Manager.
4. Change the upload template
Return the server boot template to the previous one When you reboot the server from the OS, the boot template will automatically change to the one that was set before the server was booted in Rescue mode. the server booted in Rescue mode.