Installing/Preparing Debian on a headless system

[Christian Britz]

Hello,

after learning that the Debian-based RaspberryPi OS does not get
security fixes always in time (see dirty-pipe), I am considering
installing pure Debian on my system. It seems not all proprietary
components are supported, but I don't need video acceleration anyway,
for example. My Pi acts as a home server.

The thing is, the Pi is headless, it was never connected to a monitor or
keyboard, all configuration was done via SSH on a pre-built Raspberry PI
OS image. I do not even have an USB keyboard and the Pi has obviously no
PS/2 connectors.

Do you have some ideas for me, how I could prepare a minimal Debian
image on my notebook which is able to boot on the Pi and has already an
user and SSH configured? Everything else I would setup remotely.

Thank you,
Christian

--
http://www.cb-fraggle.de

[Brian]

The short answer is that you use the network-console udeb. To do that,
I preseed wirh

d-i anna/choose_modules string network-console

I boot with a netinst using hd-media and pressed from a file.

--
Brian.

[Christian Britz]

On 2022-03-09 16:50 UTC+0100, Brian wrote:
> The short answer is that you use the network-console udeb. To do that,
> I preseed wirh
>
> d-i anna/choose_modules string network-console
>
> I boot with a netinst using hd-media and pressed from a file.

That sounds very interesting, can you please give a little bit more of
details? I never have worked with preseeding before.
--
http://www.cb-fraggle.de

[Christian Britz]

Re-thinking about it, I probably can't use the Debian installer on the
Raspi (it does not support UEFI). I probably need to modify one of the
images at https://raspi.debian.net/

[Brian]

Sorry, I do not know anything about UEFI and the installer. I will,
however, guide you through the steps to use preseeding and get a
netwprk console.

--
Brian.

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

Which Raspberry Pi model - Pete Batard has a version of UEFI that works on
a Pi 4 and can boot enough to then use the Debian installer. Essentially,
you put UEFI and the raspberry pi firmware package in the ESP on a USB stick
or disk.

Otherwise, you can probably use one of Gunnar Wolf's images which will
allow you to ssh in as root initially. See his pages on the Wiki.

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

[Christian Britz]

On 2022-03-09 18:57 UTC+0100, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:

> Which Raspberry Pi model - Pete Batard has a version of UEFI that works on
> a Pi 4 and can boot enough to then use the Debian installer. Essentially,
> you put UEFI and the raspberry pi firmware package in the ESP on a USB stick
> or disk.

I have model 4 B. Sounds interesting, although the preferred solution
would be something, which does not involve attaching a USB keyboard.

> Otherwise, you can probably use one of Gunnar Wolf's images which will
> allow you to ssh in as root initially. See his pages on the Wiki.

OK, I have to see that again, sounds good. From what I saw on
raspi.debian.org, I understood that SSH is enabled, but not for root.

> All the very best, as ever,

Wish you the same,
Christian

--
http://www.cb-fraggle.de

[Christian Britz]

I just modified an image from raspi.debian.net and was able to login via
ssh. Thank you all for the input. :-)

[Tim Woodall]

There is someone who does prebuilt pure debian images that will get you
started.

https://itsfoss.com/debian-raspberry-pi/

This reply from Gunnar Wolf might help you too:

Hello Tim!

Tim Woodall dijo [Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 12:49:18PM +0000]:
> Hi,
>
> Many thanks for your debian images for the raspberry pi. They solved
> my
> confusion after I tried to do this myself and failed miserably.

I am very happy that my work is useful to you!

> One tiny change I'd quite like you to consider is either an
> authorized_keys file for root where you publish the private key or a
> root password set rather than empty so that you can login using ssh on
> an initial boot.

Take a look at /boot/firmware/sysconf.txt (that is, /sysconf.txt in
the firmware partition, the partition formatted with vfat). It has:

# root_authorized_key - Set an authorized key for a root ssh login
#root_authorized_key=

Greetings!

[Christian Britz]

Hi Keith,

On 2022-03-10 08:12 UTC+0100, Keith Bainbridge wrote:

> uname :
> Linux rasp14 5.10.92-v8+ #1514 SMP PREEMPT Mon Jan 17 17:39:38 GMT 2022
> aarch64 GNU/Linux

...and this is not the latest kernel available in pure Debian. It is
missing important security fixes. Since last night an image from
raspi.debian.net is running on my headless Pi. :-) It took me very few
time, to get my web, file and dlna services running again. I guess I
don't need the proprietary optimisations of Raspberry Pi OS.

Regards,
Christian

--
http://www.cb-fraggle.de

[Christian Britz]

On 2022-03-10 08:35 UTC+0100, Christian Britz wrote:
> ...and this is not the latest kernel available in pure Debian. It is

This is what I got directly from Debian: Linux raspberrypi
5.10.0-12-arm64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.103-1 (2022-03-07) aarch64 GNU/Linux

--
http://www.cb-fraggle.de

[Keith Bainbridge]

Good afternoon Christian

I'm not sure why you aren't getting security updates. When I run # apt
update on my Pi4, the first line of output is :

Get:1 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security
InRelease [44.1 kB]

uname :
Linux rasp14 5.10.92-v8+ #1514 SMP PREEMPT Mon Jan 17 17:39:38 GMT 2022
aarch64 GNU/Linux

Should there be more that I am missing?

Tim
Thanks for the link to Gunnar's image. My next project, well maybe the
one after. Thanks

--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithrb...@gmail.com

[David Wright]

> network console.

That would be most helpful if you would post that.

Cheers,
David.

[Brian]

Carry out the instructions in sections 1 to 10 at

https://wiki.debian.org/Installation+Archive+USBStick

Attached is the relevant portion of my preseed.cfg up to partitioning.
I do that manually.

--
Brian.

[David Wright]

Thanks, very useful. I always install using the network console,
so this saves me finding a chair, possibly a screen, and a very
boring few minutes.

Cheers,
David.