I haven't written a guide yet, but here's a tip: Debian doesn't have /etc/inittab, but devuan needs it, so you'll have to copy one from another devuan install.

Another tip: if the NICs don't come up after a reboot, you must install eudev, then they will come up. You are going to need an emergency console for this. Some notes are here: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=3044&p=2

Best way to do this: Find a provider that offers custom ISO installation. It's the right way to go. Custom ISO is essential for VPS. Speak with your wallets w/Providers that offer custom iso. There's a bunch out there. Hopefully in a couple years, it will be standard across the board.

EDIT: I just spent the 20 minutes to look back through my notes, and migrated from buster to beowulf. Here's the guide.

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add devuan's repos
root@debian:~# apt-get update --allow-insecure-repositories
root@debian:~# apt-get install devuan-keyring --allow-unauthenticated
root@debian:~# apt-get update
apt-get install sysvinit #may not be required
reboot #may not be required
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade #says it will delete running kernel. allow it to (I think it's "no" here, read the warning carefully)
install the kernel again. note that you can't
install linux-image-amd64, you must install the current release.
e.g. apt-get install linux-image-4.19.0-13-amd64. Whatever is most current.
make sure boot has an initramfs and kernel.
What this does is remove the debian kernel, and install the devuan kernel
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get remove systemd libsoup2.4-1-  #this will ignore the dependency on libsoup, and allow removing systemd
it will error out. that's ok,
sudo apt-get install sysvinit-core
sudo apt-get install eudev #IMPORTANT. We must download this before rebooting. It will fail, but that is ok.
now, before you reboot make sure /etc/inittab has something in place.
It does for me, so devuan installed it this time.
now: reboot
in my vps i was locked out, because they have some strange ifup settings.
from emergency console: apt-get install eudev
after this, reboot once more to get eudev running.
the dhcp may timeout. just wait a moment.
now NICs are visible, and you should be in devuan. At least I was with my VPS.
Tested with Debian 10. 01/10/2021.

It's worth noting that my interfaces look something like the below from the provider. So it's not just DHCP.

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*
# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto enp
iface enp inet static
        address <WANIP>
        netmask 255.255.255.255
        broadcast +
        up ip -f inet route add 169.254.0.1 dev enp
auto enp:1
iface enp:1 inet static
        address <SOMELANIP>
        netmask 255.0.0.0
        broadcast +

golinux wrote:

<Irrwahn> He could probably do that himself. ISTR that basically any customer can deposit any ISO (that meets some criteria) at their store.

Well, to be honest i don't know. I've never needed this (as i can install pretty much whatever i want using just rescue mode) but i am quite sure i can't simply upload something and have it automatically be add to the list on their website.

I've looked into this and found absolutely nothing. Even the KVM related wiki pages only talk about being able to mount a remote ISOs using CIFS and cloud documentation just seems to go on about selecting an ISO from the list. No mention of any upload option. I guess this doesn't exist after all but it it does some kind of pointer would be neat.

Edit: Thinking about this i'll just ask Hetzner if they can add Ascii. I need to get off the PC and make some jelly before my cherries go bad. No point in wasting time with all this grumpyness

Some feedback from irc.

<Irrwahn> golinux: That's just install via some ISO image. That's not the same as an officially supported install image, but more like "bring your own OS". And it will only work for VMs, not dedicated machines, unless you rent a KVM + virtual drive console.
<Irrwahn> By this metric virtually any old hosting company in existence can be said to have an "Install Devuan" option.

That's partly true. Of course it won't work for dedicated machines as those don't have virtual CD-ROM drives. As for needing a KVM and anything virtual to install ISOs on the dedicated servers... Well, no. All my dedicated boxes at Hetzner are installed from ISOs and i haven't used any of this. I also tend to somewhat disagree about the any hoster offers this statement. I've seen enough companies that will not let you mount custom ISOs at all let alone have Devuan included in the list of available ISOs.

Well, to be honest i don't know. I've never needed this (as i can install pretty much whatever i want using just rescue mode) but i am quite sure i can't simply upload something and have it automatically be add to the list on their website.

No offense to the guy but that made me chuckle a bit. It's not like Hetzner offers any software support at all. Even if you have some kind of network problem they'll have you boot into rescue mode and if it isn't reproduceable there it's up to you to fix it no matter what you are running.

Edit: I'll have to agree that Hetzners images are more fail safe. I had a bad MTU on one of my installs which caused me quite bit of hairloss and i guess that wouldn't have happend with their images (even if the bad MTU was just a result of me not paying enough attention). It's not like they are going to help you if you managed to break it on a supported OS though. In fact the support didn't even ask what i was running.

and then . . .

and finally:

@devuser . . . That's fantastic news!  The process is a bit daunting though - not for the faint-hearted.  I should probably add Hetzner to the list and include a link to your post above.  Could you possibly contact them requesting either an update to or addition of the ASCII iso?

Well, tbh i have a bit of an aversion to making support requests for stuff i don't actively use but i figure i'll probably want to move my legacy VPS to their cloud at some point so i guess that justifies it. I'll write them later. It's probably not going to get answered during the weekend anyways.

After creating the VM which allows just a handful of operating systems (i choose Debian 9 but i don't think it matters) you have something like this:

If you click the servername there you'll get an overview like this:

From there you select 'Power':

and shut the VM down (it's labeled 'Herunterfahren' here) but i guess since we don't care about a clean shutdown 'Power Off' would equally work. Now you can select ISO-Images and mount ('Einbinden') Devuan Jessie netinst (it's even on the first page, nice!):

Now turn the VM on again (using 'Power') and and go to the server menu to launch the web console (labeled 'Konsole' here):

You should be greeted by the Devuan installer asking to select graphical or text install. I choose text which likely doesn't matter again but as the installation has some quirks it might be the better option. Speaking of quirks, this is what i encountered during the actual installation:

After detecting the network the installer complains about not being able to detect the default gateway. This can be easily fixed by following the instructions in Hetzners wiki at https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Cloud … Gateway/en. Basically you hit ALT + cursor right to get to a shell then enter the following commands:

ip r ad 172.31.1.1 dev eth0
ip r ad default via 172.31.1.1

To switch back use ALT + cursor left. Choose to continue without the gateway (not really true since we have just configured it). The setup then asks for a nameserver which can be found at https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Hetzn … _Server/en. I've just used the first one.

When it came to selecting a HTTP mirror there was something i am not entirely sure about: When i tried to select a mirror from the list neither the localized URL nor auto.mirror.devuan.org seemed to work so i choose manual selection and entered deb.devuan.org for the address and /merged/ for the directory which worked fine.

One final problem that had me stuck for a bit was then when trying to install software the installer would fail with a huge message on a red screen. Trying around a bit it came down to the installer having problems with authenticating packages (outdated ISO?) and it's possible to fix this by again switching to a terminal (ALT + cursor right) and running the following commands:

chroot /target apt-get -y --force-yes devuan-keyring
chroot /target apt-get update

After that you can just hit OK on the error message and retry the software installation step.

When the installer is finsihed you have to unmount the ISO:

The huge orange box at the top basically says "You have an ISO mounted" and the link at the end allows you to unmount it. I am quite sure you could archive the same using the ISO-Images menu entry also though.

At this point your Devuan VM is ready to go. I found IPv6 wasn't configured but i guess it's easy to fix that by following the post installation instrcutions at https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Cloud … Gateway/en.

That's it. I hope it's somewhat useful. Wonder when Hetzner will add an Ascii ISO though. I am not using any cloud instances otherwise i'd pester the support about it. Guess they'll sooner or later add it anyways given they allready have Jessie.

How can I access the server I rebuilt? ... a new root-password for server1 will be generated and mailed to you. It will be set on first boot using the cloud-init mechanism.

If custom ISOs are supported i wouldn't think this to be relevant in this case but i'll have a try later. Let's see how it goes.

Edit: Hetzners cloud indeed offers a direct option to select a Devuan (Jessie, netinstall) ISO for setup. Will post some pictures once i have a working VM.

How can I access the server I rebuilt? ... a new root-password for server1 will be generated and mailed to you. It will be set on first boot using the cloud-init mechanism.

That's that then ;(

ks wrote:

But perhaps it's not so bad an idea if you build a list of hosters where devuan is either a clickable option or can be migrated to, even if it's only maintained until people get tired of poettering about and demand systemd-free hosting.

devuser wrote:

. . . I haven't seen a single hoster that actually offers Devuan templates yet. I've tried a bit of lobbying here or there but so far no luck.

Two options were included in the ASCII stable announcement.  That info is posted in two places on the devuan.org website.

https://devuan.org/os/debian-fork/ascii … nce-060818
https://devuan.org/os/install

Ouch. Should have remembered that.

Yeah, Hetzner has no official support. At least not on the normal VPS/dedis and is imo unlikely to add it (my servers all run voodoo'd Devuan installs) but their cloud VPS seem to be able to install from a user supplied ISO. At least i had a friend tell me he had installed Devuan on it and he is not the guy to go through the voodoo steps. I was like: "Nice. How did you do it?" and he replied "I selected custom ISO".

Edit: Hmm now i am getting curious. Might check this out tommorow. Maybe there actually is something that lets you directly select Devuan? I'd be seriously surprised but who knows? That'd be massive. Hetzner is damn huge.

But perhaps it's not so bad an idea if you build a list of hosters where devuan is either a clickable option or can be migrated to, even if it's only maintained until people get tired of poettering about and demand systemd-free hosting.

Two options were included in the ASCII stable announcement.  That info is posted in two places on the devuan.org website.

https://devuan.org/os/debian-fork/ascii … nce-060818
https://devuan.org/os/install

AWS used to have a devuan image available.  Perhaps one of you could confirm.  As to Hetzner . . . according to one of our devs:

Yes of course I'm looking for a different hoster for other projects. What I liked about the current hoster is their unlimited data transfer, and the project I installed there last week (or was it the week before) currently using centos does need a big pipe.

Well, unmetered (unlimited - sorry to be a smartass - doesn't exist as noone has unlimited resources) is often quite hit and miss. You have to keep in mind that (at least in europe) a dedicated gbit is at least about $150/m - if you buy bulk (10gbit upwards) and this being absolute bargain pricing the connectivity will not be anything to write home about. Compare this to whatever you are paying and do the maths by what factor the provider needs to oversell the bandwidth to make any kind of profit if everybody tried maxing their port. Not saying this is anything outrageous (it's quite normal business practice and it can work out if you have enough people not trying to use 100%) but often you get more of what you actually pay for by going with a metered deal instead of competing for an overbooked port with x other people.

Yeah, OpenVZ seems to not cause any problems. I've canceled my last OpenVZ VM before Ascii became RC but i guess it won't behave much different than Jessie. Word of caution though: OpenVZ is not full virtualization like VMWare or KVM (that's the reason btw i tend to use VNC for virtual consoles - KVM is confusing as it's also the name of a virtualization technology) and it's quite old (there is a new version but most providers haven't migrated yet - even if the commonly used version is about to EOL). You will be stuck with a (heavily patched) 2.6 kernel which you can't upgrade (whatever kernel your OS installs will be ignored) and you can't load kernel modules. Tun/tap is usually available but even fuse is already pretty rare. Imo you'd be better of to go for KVM virtualization. It's almost equally cheap these days.

I know this is not directed at me but i'll answer anyways. I haven't seen a single hoster that actually offers Devuan templates yet. I've tried a bit of lobbying here or there but so far no luck. The easiest more widespread approach would be hosters that allow custom ISOs. VMHaus (no personal experience but they are generally well liked) comes to mind and i've heard reports of Hetzners cloud offering also having a custom ISO option (could verify this if there is interest - i just have a couple normal VPS and dedis with them but as their cloud is billed hourly it would costs cents to try).

Yes of course I'm looking for a different hoster for other projects. What I liked about the current hoster is their unlimited data transfer, and the project I installed there last week (or was it the week before) currently using centos does need a big pipe.

This afternoon I found someone using OpenVZ and just tried one of their VPS - worked as you yourself said. And if I find the time next week I'm going to try a VPS hosted at fasthosts.

@golinux:

They offer a money back guarantee with every contract. After I failed earlier I cancelled the new contract I made at lunch time using their web form, so no sweat.

But perhaps it's not so bad an idea if you build a list of hosters where devuan is either a clickable option or can be migrated to, even if it's only maintained until people get tired of poettering about and demand systemd-free hosting.

Have you asked for a refund?

Yeah though about this too but then it seems he has already used the service with other OSs and i have a feeling the host will argue they don't support anything not listed in their panel. Still a full virtualization environment that relies on code running on the guest is a pretty sad thing and i'd let the host know quite well what i think of it. These days it's not even all that uncommon to be able to just use a custom ISO for installing. In any case i agree this is really borderline to being a broken product in my opinion.